Journeys: Promise to a Lady
by Mary6
Summary: Part One of 'Journeys'. Alternate Season 6 and beyond. Picking up shortly after the events of ‘The Gift’, this is my version of Spike’s journey. Winner: Fancy Me Yours 'Best Romance Fic'; Shadows & Dust Awards: Judge's Choice. Part One now COMPLETE
1. Default Chapter

**Journeys by Mary**

~*~

We are shaped and fashioned by what we love. 

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

~*~

**Author's Notes/Summary/Rating**

As the events of Season 6 of the show Buffy the Vampire Slayer unfolded, and I realized the story was going in directions I wouldn't necessarily have taken it myself, I decided to do what fan fiction writers often do – recreate it, and what I envision would come after it – in my own little Buffyverse.

'Journeys' picks up very shortly after the events of 'The Gift'. Part One, Promise to a Lady, takes place in the summer between seasons five and six. Some plot points from early season 6, even some scenes,  and an occasional direct line of dialogue, have been downright stolen by me and incorporated into Part Two of 'Journeys', called Awakenings. However, you'll find I've toyed mercilessly with the timeline. and the plot points and scenes themselves have been, on almost every occasion, twisted and changed, sometimes radically. This is deliberate, so there's no need to notify me that _this really happened before that, _or that _that_ didn't happen at all. g Beyond Awakenings, the story pretty much goes off in its own direction. Readers should also be aware that I don't watch Angel, so the parts of this story that involve the Angel characters have very little, if anything, to do with what's actually happening on that show.  

It is Spike's struggle, his journe_y_, that intrigues me as has that of no other fictional character, _ever._ I'm deeply grateful to JW, who created this fascinating and complex character, to the writers who added their own twists to Spike, and to JM who, through talent and that unbelievably expressive face, brought him vividly to life in all his wildly colorful shades of gray, and forced me to care about his story. I thank all of them. 

'Journeys' has angst, sex, some attempts at humor, dozens of extremely sappy scenes (you have been warned!), and some actual plot. Who knew? Most of all, it has, I hope, love. While it is primarily a Spike-centric story, it is also Buffy/Spike. Though her presence can often be felt, Buffy remains inconveniently dead in Part One, thereby preventing gobs of wild Buffy/Spike lovin'. However, readers can expect to see numerous random, and not so random, acts of sex between the two in latter parts of the story. There is also blood play, and the occasional very bad word, so, overall, 'Journeys' should be considered NC-17. For readers following this story at FF.net, an alternative site for reading chapters with the NC-17 rating will be provided. 

This, my version of Spike's story, was written to satisfy my own desire to play with the ideas of good and evil, and the part the transforming power of love can play in the struggle between them. I'm not at all sure that's what ending up happening, but it was in the original plan. (Honest! I have outlines, copious notes, actual blueprints!) 

Feedback will not make the chapters appear any faster, but would still be lovely to receive. My e-mail address is: MKStatz@aol.com. If you're interested in posting 'Journeys' at your website (woo-hoo!), contact me, and we'll talk.

At this time, I plan to post new chapters every 5-7 days. Once the story is completely written, I will post remaining chapters more often. 'Journeys' is a long story, and I waited to start posting it until I felt relatively sure I could actually _finish_ it. Currently, I'm feeling _mostly_ confident, so here goes...  

**Disclaimer**

Joss Whedon, ME, UPN, WB, blah, blah, blah...

The television programs, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Angel and all of the characters appearing in them belong to someone other than me. If they belonged to me, I'd – well, read and find out. 

Mary

September 29, 2002   


**Journeys by Mary**

~*~

We are shaped and fashioned by what we love. 

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

~*~

**Part One – Promise to a Lady**

WHY did I love her? 

Because it was her; because it was me.

– Montaigne

~*~

**Chapter One    **

Breaking into the city morgue was far too easy. Spike didn't know why he felt any sense of surprise at all. After the better part of four years, he should be immune to the internal workings of Sunnydale. The Hellmouth had made the city and all its many aspects an alternative to reality.

Why the hell was he here, anyway? She was gone.

Dead.

His Slayer was dead. 

'Course, she'd never been his. Never would be now. Bugger it; she never would've been his even if she'd lived. He knew that. He'd always known.

But it didn't matter now. 

She was dead.

Like him.

He knew why he was here, of course. He just needed to – see her. Touch her. Be alone with her, even if it was only for a few stolen moments. He wanted to say his goodbyes to her in private, away from watchful Scoobie eyes. They would never accept his desire for that type of privacy with her body, and he couldn't ask. Not now. Maybe he'd never have been able to, but especially not now. Not after he'd failed...

Couldn't face any of them after that. _After the tower._

Spike had no problem finding her. He went unerringly to the drawer that held her body, drawn to it as though she was calling to him, and he barely hesitated before pulling it open.

The growingly familiar nausea slammed into him, and he stumbled back a step before squaring his shoulders and reaching out his hand. With a swift gesture, he pulled away the sheet covering her.

_Ahhh, love, hello._

Spike's eyes touched her, swept over her nude form, drank in what he knew would be his last sight of her.

Oh god, she was so tiny, looked so small lying there. Beautiful, unmarked. How could she be unmarked after that fall? Death had not robbed her skin of its' golden sheen, and he wanted so badly to believe she would be warm to his touch.

She wasn't.

_Buffy. Oh, love. I'm sorry, so sorry, so sorry._

He reached out, touched her face, and cradled her cheek in his calloused palm.

Conscious thought dissolved into agony.

Arms clutched, pulled, held, rough hands caressed, stroked over hair and skin. Tears bathed her throat, her stomach, her breast, as his open mouth tasted her, memorizing her flavor. She'd not been here so long as to have lost her unique scent and taste.

_My fault, my fault. I'm so sorry. I love you, love you – and I couldn't do the one thing you asked of me. The only thing you ever asked of me._

She would never forgive him, and it didn't matter. He didn't deserve forgiveness. Not from her, not from Dawn. Not from the Watcher or from her friends.

It was sure as bleedin' hell he would never forgive himself.

He sat slumped on the floor, cradling Buffy's body to him, as the long, stark hours of the night passed. He didn't talk to her. She wouldn't want to hear about his pain, his sorrow and guilt. She wouldn't want to hear about his love. So he remained silent, his face buried against her throat. Cradled her and rocked her, and cried against her dead flesh.

Anguished sobs from a dead man for the now dead woman he had loved.

After tonight, he'd never touch her again; never hold her against him in passion or in pain, in anger, in celebration, in love. Everything he'd ever wanted, every possibility he'd ever envisioned, ever dreamt of, had fallen into oblivion when she'd leapt from that tower.

Dead.

His Slayer was dead.

No. No. No. No.

_Torment._

Would it be easier to bear if he'd possessed her? If she'd been his for even one night? Would having that memory to cling to ease the crushing despair of her loss? He didn't know. 

Even now, he knew he would cling forever to the memory of stolen hours created by a spell gone wrong. The sudden and unexpected _rightness_ of her mouth on his, warm, eager, _loving..._ Kissing her had been a bloody revelation. He could still remember how unbelievable her kisses had been, how completely intoxicating. _No one_ had ever kissed him like she did. _No one_ had ever made him feel the way she made him feel with just her mouth on his.

And, oh god, would he ever forget the mind-blowing pleasure of simply holding her in his arms, foreheads resting together as they enjoyed one another's touch? Happiness. Simple happiness. Even the snarky bickering over wedding details couldn't hide the joy flowing into and out of both of them. Had he ever felt it before in his existence?

He didn't think he'd ever be able to forgive the red-haired witch for showing him that, then tearing it away. 

Spike rubbed his face against Buffy's, nuzzling gently at her neck, as he let himself dwell for a painful moment on the one other memory he would never let go of. One kiss, freely given. Passionless, but heartfelt. He felt a swift stab of unreasonable anger that his mouth had been so numb from that bitch hell god's beatings that he'd been unable to feel that kiss in all its' unexpected wonder to the degree he should have been able to feel it.

Sometimes he honestly wondered if the Powers That Be had taken some sort of personal interest in tainting every small pleasure that came his way.

Didn't matter. Nothing was gonna change now. No more chances. No more what ifs. No more maybes. No more dreams of a love far above him.

Gone. She was gone.

He'd always been beneath her anyway.

He could smell the coming dawn long before the first rays of light lit the sky. He rose, lifting Buffy's body back onto the cold metal slab. He didn't notice the blood smeared on the floor where he'd been sitting, didn't see the numerous small areas where it had pooled. He carefully arranged Buffy's limbs before smoothing the sheet back over her. Putting her back the way she'd been. Wouldn't do to have anyone know her body had been touched – defiled, they'd probably think – by a demon like him. Didn't wanna upset anyone, add to their grief. 

It wouldn't matter to any of the others that all he really wanted was to take her body with him, to look for and find a fine and private place where he could hold her to him for the remainder of time.

Dead. She was dead.

_He wanted so badly to join her. But it could never, would never, be. Even if he allowed the sun to end him, he would never be with her. _

He reached out to straighten the slender gold chain around her throat, and hissed with pain when his fingers came into contact with the delicate filigree cross suspended from it. He snatched his fingers back and stared at them. It was obvious they had come into contact with the cross many times during the long hours of the night as he held her body to his. Dozens of burns, some clearly showing the pattern of the cross, covered his hands. He stared at them. His mind, growing increasingly unable to focus, could only grasp one thought.

Could he damn well feel nothing then?

It was with a mixture of defiant anger and grief that Spike removed the pendant from Buffy's neck. Spike tore away the fabric of his t-shirt to bare his skin, and flattened the cross against his chest. He hissed as the metal burned into his chest and his hand simultaneously.

Hissed and held on. Deeper. Yeah, there's pain, bugger it all to hell.

_Burn me, burn me, burn me, burn me..._

Before he left he carefully refastened the pendant back around Buffy's neck. The flesh on the thumb and the first two fingers of his left hand was burned away to the bone, but he still managed to fasten the tiny clasp, and lay the cross carefully against the upper curve of her breast. He let his hand glide over her hair one last time, leaned close to catch her scent, and finally pulled the sheet up over her face. He left then, melting out of the building as the earliest workers were arriving.

Beneath the sheet, Buffy's chest, neck and hair were spattered with more than a little of the vampire's blood. Because, when a hole is burned straight through the chest, through flesh and bone, and directly into the heart, there's bound to be blood. 

Even if that heart isn't beating.****

~*~

Time went a little wonky after that, following the direction his mind had already taken.

By the time he arrived back at his crypt, his hand hurt like a sonofabitch. He looked at it again. Yup, those were his bones, sod it all. Spike knew there was something wrong with his back as well. Twinges of pain had been bothering him off and on for a while – may be even a couple of days – he wasn't sure. But, there on his back, just above his waist, he could feel a clammy, sticky wetness that usually meant he was bleeding. He could smell the blood, for that matter. He had a vague recollection of being stabbed, but he couldn't remember where or by whom. 

In fact, his whole body hurt and he had the nagging suspicion he was sporting more than a few broken bones. He knew he needed blood in order to heal, and, no matter what anyone thought, he needed human blood to heal with any speed. There were a couple of bags of human blood among the jars of pig's blood in his refrigerator. The Slayer herself had brought him several bags of A-Neg, his favorite, in the days after Glory had attempted to get him to betray Dawn. 

He pulled one out, and then stared at it in his hand, remembering his surprise when Buffy had brought him the welcome supply. 

_Her face had borne that pinched expression that was becoming commonplace since the death of her mum, and she had more or less ignored his questioning eyes as she placed the blood in the refrigerator._

_He'd said something clever, he remembered, something like, "Thank you."_

_And she had simply replied, "You're welcome." She had added something about needing him back to full strength as soon as possible._

_She'd been wearing something white and soft looking, and she'd smelled like Lilies of the Valley. It wasn't her usual scent, which was much less definable, and it had lingered in the dark air of his crypt for hours after she'd left. Or so it seemed._

_She'd implied she'd be needing him__._

_Like he was someone she could count on, someone she considered trustworthy – at least to a degree. He remembered sitting up a bit straighter, enjoying thoughts of fighting alongside the Slayer, guardin' her back. _

_He'd hoped to hell, though, that she didn't plan to lump him in with the soddin' Scoobies..._

_Her hair had been shining like sunlight. He remembered wondering if the Lily of the Valley scent was perfume or a scented shampoo._

_Wondered too, if he would ever be close enough to her again to find out._

Spike leaned against the door of the refrigerator and slid to the floor, the unopened blood bag still clenched in his hand. No matter where his thoughts turned – pain, pain, pain. For a few welcome minutes, the pain in his hand had distracted him from the terrible wrenching despair clawing away inside him.

Dead.

His Slayer was dead.

No, please. Please. No. No. No. 

Not her. Please not her. Anyone else. Anyone. God – him. Why not him? _It was supposed to be him. _Sonofabloodybitch, it was supposed to be him!

**_Never her._**

Something was building up inside him, growing, surging, taking him over. It was tearing at his throat, his chest, trying to get out. The feeling was so intense, so overwhelming, it terrified him. Spike dropped the blood bag, and clamped his hands to his chest. If he pushed hard enough, maybe whatever was inside him would stop trying to tear its' way out. His hands clutched at his torn shirt, ripping at it further and pulling it away. It was covered in blood, front and back, and he had no idea how it had gotten there.

It was then he noticed the hole seared into his chest. For a moment he thought it was the place Glory had dug her hand into him, but it was higher, right over his heart. As soon as he saw it, he realized it bleeding _hurt_, burning like fire. There was blood everywhere and he couldn't get a good look at the actual wound. Bloody hell, it seemed obvious to his struggling thought patterns that whatever was trying to get out of his throat had gone in there...

Was he going to have to reach into his own chest, find whatever was causing this excruciating pain, and pull it out? Maybe he should just pull out his heart – that would stop the pain, wouldn't it?

_Stop all the pain._

He felt like he desperately needed to draw breath and couldn't. Panicking, he rose to his knees, trying to get to his feet. Whatever this was, whatever was happening, he knew he could fight it better on his feet. He was a brawler, wasn't he? He was strong, dangerous. He was _evil_, damn it, and whatever was happening to him – whatever demon was causing this terrifying, gnawing agony, this indescribable torment – was going to regret messing with him. He was still the Big Bad, he was...

Alone.

_He was so alone._

Dark, hollow corridors of agony stretched out in every direction. Take one, any one. It didn't matter. Just move, run, because the fires of hell were licking at his feet, up his legs. He was going to go up in flames. He had to get away now. _Right now._

He tried to rise again, to move, but he couldn't get to his feet. He stumbled forward, sprawling across the floor.

The demon (had to be a demon, dinit?) that had attacked his chest was gaining strength, tearing more viciously at his throat. He could feel the blood flowing into his mouth, and something else. Maybe it was the demon itself. Thought turned to certainty. He was going to vomit it out. It would be gone, god, gone. Almost there, almost ... And finally it fought its way out of his body, escaping through his parted lips.

It was a scream, reduced to the barest breath of sound.

_"Buffy."_

Consciousness faded.

When he came to, Spike's dazed mind tried to suss out where he was, what was happening.

His hands slid over the floor, feeling his surroundings. He couldn't get up and panic flared again. He clutched at the floor, trying to gain some purchase.

He needed blood, didn't he? He couldn't remember why. Only stood to reason, though, dinit? Vampire. There was a blood bag on the floor not far from where he lay. He crawled toward it on his stomach, feeling a moment's victory when his hand closed around it. He morphed, letting his fangs tear into the bag, feeling the rich, welcome taste of beautiful human blood fill his mouth and flow down his throat.

It was always so intoxicating.

Strangely, he had no trouble at all finding his feet the minute he started retching. He staggered across the room, the little bit of blood he'd swallowed leaving him again in tortuous heaving spasms. What the hell was happening to him? 

He collapsed onto a small wooden table, smashing it to pieces and, in the process, sending deadly splinters of wood across the room. Had some of those splinters entered his chest through the gaping hole that the demon had left when it entered him? He could feel it inside him again. He'd thought it had left him. Hadn't it clawed its way out of his mouth? But now he could feel it again. Tearing him apart inside. It was spreading, growing inside him. It no longer tore just at his chest and throat. It was twisting into his guts, knotting them up, yanking and pulling and tearing at his intestines.

Spike cried out, shifting away from the shattered wood under his body and trying to get to one of the walls. He could defend himself better if his back was to a wall. See what was coming at him from any direction. It – they – must be in here. They were coming at him, invading his body through his chest. He had to fight, had to beat them back. _How could he fight it, fight them, if he couldn't see them?_ He looked around wildly. This was his crypt wasn't it? _Wasn't it?_ If he could get to the lower level, maybe he could make his way into the sewer tunnels. He dragged his body toward the hole in the floor, desperate to escape, desperate to prevent any more of these demons from invading his body.

He found the hole and rolled through it, falling heavily to the basement of the crypt. He'd always tried to disguise the hole. Maybe the invaders wouldn't see it. Spike dragged himself to a wall, pulled himself to his feet and placed his back against the flat surface, fists coming up in a defensive posture.

He'd always been good at fighting, at killing. Hadn't Dru told him he was born to smash and bash? Kill and maim? Killing had given him the best night of his life, hadn't it? He'd finally gained Dru's favor, had finally gained some individual identity from her sire, Angelus, whose love, acceptance and respect he had craved for over twenty years – all by killing a Slayer...

Oh god, oh god, oh god.

Dead.

His Slayer was dead.

Never gonna hold her. Never gonna touch her. Never gonna wrap his hands in her golden hair, bury himself in her body and find, at long last, his home.

His Slayer was dead.

Dead.

No. No. No.

Sounds he had never heard before were erupting from his throat, animalistic howls and wails – the anguished cries of a wounded beast. His hands were tearing at his hair, clawing at the wounds covering his body. Where had all these wounds, all this blood, come from? Wild eyes shot into every corner of the chamber. Where the hell was he?

Time no longer had any connection to reality. How long had he been here battling this – whatever it was? Hours? Days? Something was wrong. What? Something had invaded his body. It was strong, and obviously furious at being trapped inside him, judging by how rampantly it was ripping him apart inside. Even his demon couldn't expel it, couldn't seem to fight it, whoever or whatever it was, and the raw, agonizing pain it was causing him as it romped through his body, twisting and tearing at everything inside of him, was unbearable. 

He couldn't remember the last time he'd fed, didn't know where the wounds covering much of his body had come from. And he couldn't seem to keep down any blood at all; even licking blood from his own wounds gagged him. 

He didn't know what was happening or where he was. _He didn't even know **who** he was._ So he stopped thinking about it. It didn't matter. Not anymore. 

He wasn't sure when he realized that it was infinitely better not to think at all. 

Better not to exist. 

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. 

He repeated it over and over as it became a chant, a mantra.  

_There is nothing_. 

Nothing, nothing, nothing.

And then, at last, at long last...there _was_ nothing. 

The demons of loss, of mourning, devouring him from the inside out were vanquished. The gnawing grief, the overwhelming guilt, slid away, defeated. Gone. Like everything else. _There was nothing._ Endless nothingness. 

Blessed relief.

There was no one. No. One. 

Not even her. Not even him. 

He lay on his back on the floor, still and silent as only vampires can be still and silent. He didn't exist anymore. Dead, empty shell shrouded in black leather. Dead, empty eyes in a bloodless, chalk white face. 

Dead. 

_Like her._

On some level, so deep inside he would never remember it, he welcomed the empty nothingness; embracing it with a desperate, loving gratitude.

~*~


	2. Chapter Two

**'Journeys' by Mary**

~*~

WE are shaped and fashioned by what we love. 

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

~*~

**Part One – Promise to a Lady**

WHY did I love her? 

Because it was her; because it was me.

– Montaigne

~*~

See notes, etc. preceding Chapter One.

****

**Chapter Two**

He was on time. But then, he was always on time. 9:00. Time to walk Dawn home from the Magic Box, spend a couple hours with her 'til the witches were back. Spike stood just inside the door of the shop, silent and remote, as he waited for Dawn to finish up some chore Anya had assigned her. 

"You don't mind, do you?" Dawn had asked, her eyes lightly pleading, and of course, he'd nodded in agreement. Wasn't in any hurry anyway.

She wasn't 'quite ready' to leave most nights now when he arrived, but he didn't let on that he knew it was deliberate. She would try to persuade him to come in, sit with Xander or Giles until she was ready to go, but he preferred to remain by the door.

Apart.

"Good evening, Spike," Giles said as he came out of the back room. He kept his voice carefully even these days, almost pleasant. "Right on time, I see."

Spike inclined in head in acknowledgement, which seemed to be expected of him, but he didn't speak, and his eyes avoided those of the Watcher.

Giles' lips tightened almost imperceptively. He took a couple steps in the vampire's general direction and tried again.

"I appreciate your willingness to help out. We all do." His head dipped toward Xander and Anya, who nodded in agreement – Xander hesitantly, Anya with enthusiasm.

Giles made another attempt to make eye contact with Spike. 

And failed. Again. 

Spike didn't move, didn't acknowledge Giles in any way. Instead his intense blue eyes followed Dawn from their sunken sockets, and the air in the room seemed to tighten around the occupants. Thinning to the point where it seemed difficult to draw breath. If you needed to, that is.

Dawn finished shelving the books in the pile Anya had given her, and stood, surveying the shop. There was really nothing else that needed doing right now. Besides, it wasn't working. Spike never actually came _in _to the shop, never really acknowledged anyone but her – except for those sort of nod thingies he did with Giles – and he never spoke. Ever. To any of them. Only her. And even then, he only talked when they were alone. She'd tried so hard to pull him into the group – at least a little. But so far, all her attempts had been complete failures. Her hands fisted in the fabric of her t-shirt for a moment; then she smoothed it out and forced a smile onto her face.

"I'm ready," she announced and some of the tension left the room.

Spike stepped back, opened the door and held it for the young girl. Dawn threw a somewhat helpless look over her shoulder at the others before preceding him out the door. 

"Okay, then," Xander remarked into the tense silence that fell once the over-the-door bell stopped its jangling. "_Really not getting any easier, there." _

"Quite." Giles agreed. "I had hoped perhaps by now…" he let his voice trail off.

"Well, he's not as bad as he was." Anya pointed out. Which was, of course, a vast understatement. "He's up and moving and doing something useful. Even if it is something we sort of – created – to make him feel useful." She nodded her head. "I think it's working."

"Ahn, honey, you have noticed that he still hasn't said a word, right?"

"Which I continue to find remarkable considering how much Spike always seemed to enjoy the sound of his own voice." Giles added.

"Actually, I think it's creepier the way he won't look at anyone. Kind of makes me shivery."

"Me too." Xander shuddered as he agreed with his girlfriend. Giles looked at the younger man with the somewhat pained expression he often had on his face when looking at him, and Xander grew defensive.

"What? It's damned creepy. He walks around like some pale ghosty thing. Never talks, never looks at you. Eyes all black and cheeks all sunken in like those voice stealing gentlemen guys." He paused, "And they were _majorly_ creepy."

"I still say he's getting better." Anya was often more optimistic than those around her. "He certainly looks better than he did a few weeks ago, and Dawn says he talks to her regularly."

"Really?" Giles asked.

"Yes. I believe they have real conversations." Anya opened the cash register and put the last pile of receipts in. Normally she would tally everything at the end of the day, but Xander wanted to watch a movie tonight, so they were heading home as soon as she was ready. It bothered her to leave the end of day bookwork undone all night, but when one was engaged, even secretly, certain concessions had to be made for one's fiancé. All the bridal magazines said so.

"Besides, Spike is in mourning," she continued, as she gathered her purse and sweater, "and it can last a long time. Months, sometimes even years. There's no telling how long it will last with Spike, because it's different with everyone. But I do think he'll start talking to people other than Dawn soon."

Giles looked at her with interest. "Is it normal for vampires to go into mourning?"

"I really didn't do a lot of vengeance work with vampires. They prefer to take their own vengeance. So I don't have a lot of personal experience with them. But, yes, mourning the loss of a loved one is common for most beings – human and demon."

"And you don't feel the lack of a soul…?"

"I really don't see the connection. Vampires are very passionate beings. They love – well, many of them do anyway, they hate. And they mourn. Pretty straight forward if you ask me. Don't any of these books cover this stuff?" She gestured to the thousands of volumes housed in the shop and there was a certain incredulity in her tone. 

Giles became slightly flustered. "Mostly, the council deals with how to kill vampires, not, with, well…"

"Understanding them?" Anya finished for him. "I thought 'know thine enemy' was some sort of motto among humans." She caught herself. "Us. Among us. Humans. Like us. Like all of us here in this room right now." She smiled, nodding to herself in approval, sure she had covered the slip that she still, sometimes, thought of herself as other than human. They probably hadn't even noticed, she thought, happily. "You might want to consider stocking some books in your resource library that are not on the official 'Council of Watchers' Approved Reading List.'"  She shrugged, dismissing the subject as she turned to Xander. "Ready, sweetheart?"

"You bet." He was on his feet, anxious to be home. Escape into a movie. The Matrix was waiting – well, maybe not. A little too much black leather for his mood right now. Or Cujo – always a good scare in that one, and it would probably lead to Anya huggage. Or, again, maybe not. He could almost hear her now; 'This isn't realistic, Xander. First; rabid dogs would never... blah, blah, blah.' Well, they'd find something. Anya had been wanting to see some chick flick. Anything. It didn't matter. Just something to provide _some _escape, however brief.

~*~

Giles poured himself a drink after Xander and Anya left. He acknowledged his habit of reaching for alcohol in times of stress, knew it was a sign of weakness, thought disparaging thoughts of himself for it, and did it anyway.

He feared, too, that he was losing his battle with depression. Buffy's loss alone was an horrific happening he had hoped never to have to deal with. He had loved her so much, had admired her spirit, her independence, her strength, her vitality. But he had seen how the last months before they lost her had drained her, aged her and saddened her beyond what anyone of her still very young age should ever have to endure. And he felt that he had failed her in so many ways. He still cringed when remembering the way Buffy had looked at him as he stated that Dawn would have to die, the betrayal he had seen in her eyes. And the guilt mounted daily, because he was forced to admit to himself that, even now, every time he looked at Dawn, he felt angered that she – this unreal personage – lived while the daughter of his heart was de – gone – forever gone.

He wasn't sure if he would ever be able to say 'dead'. Or 'died'. Or 'death'.

He knew it was a form of denial. Another weakness.

Dawn had not turned to him for comfort, for which he supposed he should be grateful. In those first dark days, she'd given him the occasional hug, and had seemed comforted by his presence. Even now, she never displayed any animosity toward him, but even while she didn't avoid him, she held herself somewhat aloof. Instead she turned to Tara, the quiet and gentle woman who seemed to have blossomed into a wonderful anchor for the teen.

And then, of course, Dawn turned to Spike. Though Giles wasn't at all sure who was doing the comforting there, and who was seeking it. Perhaps it was a mutual need met.

The attempts made to locate Hank Summers after the showdown with Glory had delayed Buffy's funeral, and the ceremony had not been held until almost two weeks after her loss, a rather lengthy delay. Even then, Hank Summers was not present. Dawn, angered by the continued inability to locate her father, had been insistent that the ceremony be held after sunset so that Spike, at least, could be there with her. She'd been devastated when only one vampire had been in attendance – that being Angel. None of them had seen Spike since the morning after the final battle with Glory, but notes left in his heavily disarrayed crypt had informed him of the time and place of the service. Dawn had been certain he would come. She had insisted that the service itself be delayed for well more than an hour while they waited in vain for the blond. When Angel stated his opinion, backed up with visible disgust by Xander, that Spike had probably either left town or was collapsed in a drunken stupor somewhere, Dawn had stiffened in anger and given a nod to the clergyman to proceed. She hadn't spoken to Angel after the service, and when he tried to offer his sympathy, she had rebuffed him quite rudely. She hadn't been particularly pleased with Xander either.

The next day Dawn found Spike. 

Had any of them even been aware that there was a lower level to Spike's crypt? Giles couldn't remember ever having noticed it or having heard about its' existence. Seeing the chains hanging from the ceiling during one of his earliest visits to this newly discovered realm, Giles supposed that this was where Spike had chained Buffy and Drusilla in what was undoubtedly his most disastrous attempt to win Buffy's heart. Buffy had never gone into great detail about that night, and the opening leading to the lower level could easily be overlooked if one wasn't aware of its existence. 

Giles still didn't know exactly how Dawn had discovered it. Perhaps she had just been more determined than any of them had been during previous visits to the crypt when they had been attempting to locate Spike. Or perhaps she had simply been deeply brassed off. Determined to find the vampire and vent her anger. Either way, it still horrified Giles that Dawn had been the one to find Spike, that she had seen him in that horrendous condition.

God, it still sickened him, and he had seen some pretty terrible things, especially since coming to Sunnydale. 

First, there had been the wounds. He knew the deep stab would to Spike's lower back had come during the battle with Glory. Dawn had told them that Spike had been stabbed atop the tower by the little man they had called 'Doc.' At the hospital the following day with Dawn, he had shrugged off Giles' questions about the wound, and Giles had assumed vampiric healing had kicked in. Apparently it had not. When Dawn brought them to Spike after finding him, more than two weeks after the stabbing had occurred, the wound had still been open. Other injuries were consistent with Spike's fall from the tower – several broken ribs, and numerous broken bones in his both legs and in his right arm. Like the stab wound, they had not healed. 

Giles wondered how the vampire had managed to stay patiently by Dawn's side while the doctors worked on her after Buffy's dea – leap. The blond had accompanied Dawn to the hospital, had stayed, a silent, soothing presence at her side, while the doctors examined her wounds, cleaned them, and stitched them up. Dawn had clung to his hand fiercely, and Giles could remember the strangeness he had felt at seeing Spike gently stroking Dawn's hair, calming her throughout the process. He had stayed until the doctors assured him that Dawn would recover fully, that she would have very little, if any, scarring from the wounds, and that the sedatives they had administered would keep her asleep for several hours. Then, without speaking to any of them, he had disappeared into the tunnels running under the city, not to be seen again until Dawn found him the day after the funeral.

There were other wounds – deep burns in his chest and on his hands. Giles really didn't know how those had occurred. Flesh and bone alike were blackened, and the stench was horrid. Xander had thrown up when he's seen Spike's chest, and Giles and Tara had been the ones to cut away the dead flesh and dress the wounds.

But as awful as the wounds and injuries had been, they were nothing compared to the general physical state Spike was in. 

It had been almost like finding a survivor of Auschwitz or Dachau. Emaciated to the point of looking almost skeletal, they had, at first glance, thought Spike had passed into some strange and heretofore unknown form of vampiric death. Giles had been shocked to the core, and he was quite sure he hadn't yet recovered. He'd never seen a vampire in that state before, couldn't even remember having read about it in any of his hundreds of books. Upon closer examination, it was clear Spike was still – alive – on some level. He didn't speak, didn't move, but his eyes were still cognizant, or at least alert on some deep level. They moved, sometimes focusing on a face or a motion. Mostly they were empty, deadened pools of blue, burning out of their sunken sockets in a manner that gave Giles nightmares still.

Of course, Giles knew of torpor, the state in which vampires could supposedly exist for long periods of time without feeding. But his knowledge suggested that a vampire in that state would never turn down blood, was, in fact, almost mad for it. That hadn't been the case with Spike. 

There were a few blood packets lying about on the floor upstairs, opened, their contents spilled on the ground next to them. It hadn't taken them long to figure out that Spike had been unable to keep any blood down. Or that he still couldn't. Not pig's blood. Not human blood. Not blood fresh from Giles' arm. And yes, he had offered. It wasn't that Spike didn't try. He did. It was the only time he seemed to move at all. He would take some of the human blood, would instinctively put his mouth to the wound Giles would slice into his own arm. It didn't matter. Within minutes – seconds sometimes – he was gagging, vomiting up whatever he had taken in, almost choking on it in the process. And in his terribly weakened state, the heaves wracking his body were frighteningly terrible to see. It didn't seem to matter what opinion each of them held of Spike, they were all shaken and horrified by what Spike was going through. The young women – Willow, Tara and Anya – clung to each other over this, one more shock after so many others. Even Xander, whose dislike of Spike almost equaled his hatred of Angel, seemed deeply affected. 

And Dawn. Oh my, Dawn. The poor girl had been reduced to a dreadful state, bouts of hysteria intermingling with an almost catatonic state of blank staring, and flare-ups of temper. They had done their best to shield her from his continuing decline, but what she had seen when she first found him had been permanently burned into her mind's eye. Further, Giles had been certain that somehow Dawn was getting in to see Spike, even though they all agreed it was best to keep her from him, and the others all denied the possibility of her finding a way on her own.

They had no idea how to help. Or if help was even possible. Willow and Tara, even Anya and Xander had read, and researched, and read, and searched the web, and read yet more, trying to discover  what was happening to Spike and how they could restore him to his usual annoying self. But they had been rather spectacularly unsuccessful. After nearly two weeks of watching Spike's condition worsen, Giles had come to a very difficult decision. 

They must consult Angel.

The decision to call Angel had been a painful one. First off, Giles didn't know if Angel would have the knowledge to help. Even more uncertain would be his willingness. Giles knew the two vampires had an exceedingly rocky history. Knew too, that only the two of them really understood the extent of and reasons for their private war. He did know that their shared past was complicated in ways that humans would probably never fully comprehend. Giles held out some hope that despite – or even perhaps because of – some of those very complicated issues, Angel would have sufficient residual feelings for the younger vampire to want to be of help. After all, the two were still part of the same vampiric family. No matter how dysfunctional that family was.

There were other drawbacks to phoning Angel. Giles had felt sure that Spike himself would react negatively to the idea. Well, to be blunt, Giles had thought Spike would raise himself up from what seemed to be his deathbed and throw him out of his crypt. From the lower level. But Spike hadn't reacted at all. His eyes had remained lifeless and bleak, void of any emotion at all.

At that point, Giles knew that the only remaining stumbling block to calling Angel was his own undiminished – distaste – for the dark haired vampire.

Giles felt that he had honestly tried, over the years, to forgive Angel the acts of Angelus. But, inside, where he lived, where remnants of Ripper, and more importantly, Jenny, still dwelled, he knew that he never would.

He had accepted that – that inability to forget, to forgive.

Giles removed his glasses, rubbing his eyes in a mixture of habit and exhaustion. The entire experience had been more than horrifying. It had been unutterably strange and, at the same time, strangely fascinating.

To see a person – well, not a person, perhaps, but a sentient being, at any rate, in such a state. To know that said being had reached that point, at least in part, one must assume, by being unable to eat, but to not know why...or even how they had deteriorated so rapidly. It seemed only common sense to Giles that the weight loss visible in Spike should not have occurred in less than a good many weeks, possibly months. Yet only two weeks had passed when they'd first found him, and he'd already looked skeletal. The same could be said for the loss of strength and power. Dawn had told them that Spike had been stabbed by the little man on top of the tower, and Giles felt sure that some sort of poison had entered the vampire's bloodstream. Although this didn't comfortably gibe with the fact that Dawn had been cut by the same blade, with no apparent ill effects, Giles still leaned toward it as the best possible explanation.

By that time, though, they were more concerned with cure than cause. Not that they had any information in that area either...

Giles had actually found himself praying for the knowledge to help Spike. A vampire. A soulless creature that had harmed them and threatened them, and – helped them. It had all been so very – well – unsettling hardly described it. 

Then, before he actually picked up the phone to consult Angel, it was over.

It had been on Xander's watch. While Tara stayed at the Summers house with Dawn every night, the rest of them – he, Xander, Anya, and Willow – had been taking rotating shifts staying in the crypt with Spike during the day, and had agreed that each night, one of them would spend the long, dark hours upstairs. They didn't openly call it a death watch, but they all knew what it was. And because Spike had fought beside them against Glory, because Buffy had seemed to put a lot of trust in him in the last weeks of her life, they had done this. For her. Because they felt she would have wanted them to.

And perhaps, somewhat reluctantly, and to their surprise, for Spike himself.

Xander had been watching television on the main floor of the crypt, dozing perhaps, as the night passed. And in the morning, he had opened his eyes to see Spike standing over him. Giles imagined that had led to one of Xander's less than manly reactions, though Xander would never admit to such a thing. And Spike... Well, Spike still didn't speak. Except to Dawn. When they were alone. Or at least Dawn claimed he spoke to her. Even, if what she told Anya was to be believed, that they had actual conversations. Giles had yet to hear him utter a sound.

And they had absolutely no idea what had occurred. 

What had happened, changed, that Spike was suddenly able to drink blood again? To keep it down, and – digest it, or whatever it was vampires actually did internally? Spike had been in such a weakened state by then that Giles was really at a loss to understand how he had even laid his hands on a blood source. And Giles had looked – for an empty bag, or a bottle or jar, or a dead rat for that matter. He had found nothing.

He wondered tiredly if any explanation for the whole experience – cause and cure – would ever be forthcoming, either from Spike himself, though Giles was unsure how much, if anything, Spike remembered of the experience, or from some reference source they hadn't found in their exhaustive research.

Giles replaced his glasses and took a hefty swallow of his scotch. And now he really needed to talk to Spike about an entirely different matter.

Damn the Hellmouth.

Giles could remember his early reactions upon learning that Sunnydale rested on a Hellmouth. He had felt – well, damn and blast – a form of excitement. There had been a certain amount of anticipation then, in those early days, of the challenges they would face. And though he had felt outright fear at the fate of the world resting on the shoulders of one slender and rather, well, strange, teenage girl and her friends, he had still been able to view the glass as 'half-full', as he had put it at the time, rather than half-empty.

Perhaps he had just been too young and foolish himself. Five years had changed his perspective. 

And his life.

Yes, well, he couldn't afford to dwell too much on things past right now – Jenny and Joyce, The Master, the mayor, Faith, Angel. His beloved girl, Buffy. Oh dear lord, he had promised himself he would not do this now. Just – focus, Giles, old man.

The opening of the dimensional portal that night on the tower had released some particularly nasty creatures into this dimension. In the first days after that final battle, there hadn't been much noticeable activity. Giles had hoped that most of them had disappeared back to their own dimensions when Buffy jumped. And undoubtedly many had. Others had most likely been killed by the effects of the dimensional leap, or by an inability to sustain life in this dimension, or by some nasty already residing on the Hellmouth. And some had perhaps gone into seclusion while trying to come to an understanding of what had happened to them, and where they now were.

But in recent days they seemed to be coming out of the woodwork, so to speak. The reported sightings he had received the last two days of a dragon in flight had been particularly unsettling.

In addition, Glory's unstable and powerful presence had served to reduce what Giles had come to see as a 'normal' level of demon activity on the Hellmouth. Now, with rumors of her demise circulating, combined with the first whispers of the possible dea— absence of the Slayer, demonic activity had undergone a decided and very unwelcome surge in the last week or so.

Giles had decisions to make.

And he wanted to discuss some of them with Spike.

It was a pretty depressing indicator of the current sorry state of affairs, when a trained Watcher of his experience was convinced his most likely source of help was one William the Bloody, former Scourge of Europe and Slayer of Slayers.

~*~****


	3. Chapter Three

Journeys by Mary 

~*~

WE are shaped and fashioned by what we love. 

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

~*~

**Part One – Promise to a Lady**

WHY did I love her? 

Because it was her; because it was me.

– Montaigne

~*~

See notes, etc. preceding Chapter One.

**Chapter Three**

"You still have blood left, right?" It was one of the first questions she asked him every night. It usually popped out within a block or two of the Magic Box, and was always followed by a visual inspection gauging the degree of improvement in his condition. Tonight was no exception. 

"Yeah, I'm good."

"Are you – have you tried drinking regular blood yet?" Dawn asked cautiously.

"Been drinkin' it every day for a while now," he assured her, which was true. It just wasn't the whole truth. "I'm gonna be fine, bit."

It wasn't as easy to put one over on her as some people – some vampires too – seemed to think. "Have you tried drinking regular blood _plain_?" she probed.

His averted eyes told her everything she needed to know. She folded her arms protectively across her stomach.

"I'm scared, Spike."

That was the truth. He could almost taste her fear hanging in the warm summer air. Not too long ago, he would have savored it. Still would, if it was someone else's fear. Anyone really, who wasn't Dawn.

"Hey now," his deep voice soothed her. "I'll not have you worryin' yourself sick about me. I've been around a long time, luv. Gonna be around a lot longer."

"You almost died."

"Pish," he dismissed. "Just got some bad blood or somethin'." They both knew that was pretty unlikely, but since they had no idea what had really happened, Spike thought it an effective dodge. He let his eyes catch hers. "'Sides, my girl saved me, didn't she?"

Dawn brightened as he'd known she would. "Yeah. I guess I kinda did, didn't I?"

"Sure did. Still can't believe you snuck through the sewers to get to my place like that. I oughta beat you bloody for doin' somethin' so stupid and dangerous."

They'd been over this before. He tried to sound parental and disapproving, and even though real fear for her safety stabbed through him, admiration for her fearlessness still colored his tone.

Anyone in their right mind would be, if not downright scared witless, then pretty damn nervous about navigating the town through the underground tunnels. Most of the beasties known to man, and more importantly, a good many _not_ known to man, resided there, or used them to traverse the city. That Dawn had broken into the Magic Box in order to get her hands on the maps in Giles' office, had charted the course to his crypt, and had then forced herself to take that course alone, all in an effort to save his evil hide, was still a source of raw wonder to Spike. Further, the first couple visits, even though he had no memory of them, hadn't even been for the lofty purpose of saving his life. They had just been to see him, to be at his side while he was going though whatever it was he was going through. 

_To be there for him.___

_'You stayed with me at the hospital,' she'd told him. 'It was my turn to be there for you. And they wouldn't let me anywhere near you. So I had to find another way.'_

In his entire unlife, no one had come close to taking on that kind of danger for his sake. Dru had taken some risks, yeah, but Dru was a killer. Dawn, though – an innocent child – so unable to defend herself… That this child, this young girl, would do something like that for him…

He didn't understand it. At least, he wasn't sure…But he knew how it made him feel. And he knew he'd never felt this way about another being. Her actions…If he hadn't already pledged his protection, his life, for her, he would have done so after finding out what she had done. Up until the night of Buffy's death, she may have, for the most part, still been just the Slayer's kid sis to him, he wasn't really sure. But now she was herself.

His girl._ Dawn._

And he loved her more than anything on this earth, felt a fierce protective loyalty to her. That she seemed to feel the same way about him…Well, he was still having some trouble working his mind around that one.

Dawn had become quite adept at listening in on conversations others didn't want her to hear. _Gotta protect the kid, she thought disparagingly. From eavesdropping, she knew that Spike couldn't keep any blood down. She knew they'd tried all kinds of blood, even straight-from-the-vein-Watcher blood.  And like the others, she had worried and agonized over Spike's health, the only difference being that her reasons for doing so actually involved genuine affection._

It wasn't until she'd been getting a pork roast out of the freezer for Tara to prepare for dinner one evening that Dawn had found the cure they needed. There, nestled in among the frozen packages of hamburger and the extra half gallon of Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough ice cream sat a few dozen packets of frozen Slayer blood.

Dawn had become accustomed, over time, to ignoring the packets of her sister's blood. They'd been there since shortly after Angel had tried to drain her, kept on hand because of Buffy's fear of hospitals and her high risk profession. Apparently the incident with Angel had spurred her sister into some sort of decision to keep a supply close at hand. She knew Buffy and Giles kept them 'updated', replacing aging packets of the emergency stash with fresh on a fairly regular basis. Dawn knew they were there, knew why they were there, and beyond that, had always chosen to pretty much ignore their existence, because of the general eeeww factor of the presence of human blood in the family freezer.

Tara, like Willow, believed there was a lot of comfort in food, and had been cooking up a storm since Buffy's death. She had innocently sent Dawn to fetch that roast, bringing the young girl face to face with her sister's blood, and Dawn had known. Just known. She'd known that _here_ was the cure they were looking for.

_Slayer blood.___

_Buffy's_ _blood._

Nothing would be more potent for Spike. She knew that, sadly, there was nothing remaining in this world that he would crave more, desire more. Dawn had been positive that it would cure him.

And it had.

She hadn't talked to anyone about Buffy's blood. She just didn't feel up to the arguments she might face. Objections from Xander were a certainty. The possible reactions of the others were less certain, and she wasn't going to let anything – or anyone – get in the way of helping Spike. The pain over losing her mother and her sister in such a short space of time had brought to life a firm, strong resolve in her mind. She was _not going to lose anyone else. Not if there was anything she could do about it. __Anything at all._

She hated herself for being so – _angry – with them. With her mother and Buffy. Her father too. __How could they leave her all alone? How could they? Her mother's abandonment had been unwilling. But she'd still left, hadn't she? And Buffy, even though she had been saving the world, had __chosen to leave her. __She'd chosen to leave her. Even worse, Buffy had known what their father was like. How – uninvolved. How careless. And she'd still jumped. She'd known Dawn would be left all alone in the world, and she had still jumped. Dawn didn't know if she could ever forgive her for that. And she knew her anger at dead people only proved again that there was something wrong with her – that she wasn't a good person. After all, only someone really bad, or probably even evil, could feel this kind of overwhelming anger at her own dead mother and sister, right?_

When Spike hadn't shown up at the funeral, she'd been devastated. Him, too? Probably he had only cared about her because of Buffy, she tried to tell herself. Just like the Scoobies probably did. She'd thought there was something between her and Spike – some sort of tie. Something that had been growing for months. And after the way he had looked at her just before Doc had thrown him off the tower, and the way he had held her hand, touched her, soothed her at the hospital afterward… She'd been so sure he loved her like she loved him. But when he hadn't contacted her again, hadn't been at the funeral…

She was furious with him the night of the funeral. She'd sat there, not even listening to the words of the minister. All she'd wanted to do was find Spike. Find him, and fly at him, and claw at him, and scream out her rage and her pain at his betrayal. She'd accepted the words of comfort offered by the others, and hadn't even heard them. Somehow, the words had lost meaning and structure in the time between leaving their mouths and reaching her ears. All she could think about was finding Spike – and maybe, _maybe even __killing him…_

When she_ had found him the next day, she'd been terrified by his condition. But she'd also felt, guiltily, a tremendous sense of relief. __He hadn't left her. He was sick, hurt, and he hadn't been able to get to her. __But he hadn't left her. _

And she was gonna do whatever she had to do to make sure that whatever was wrong with him didn't take him away. From her.

Getting to, and into, the vampire's crypt, with her sister's blood had been almost scarier than her first trips. Probably, she thought later, because this trip meant more. She'd already gone into the tunnels on two other occasions in that terrible week since she'd first found Spike, but that didn't make it any less frightening. Sneaking out of the house, past the trusting Tara, was easy. But the trip through the dark streets of Sunnydale, the entrance into the tunnels as close to the crypt as she could manage and the short trip through them until she actually emerged into the lower level of the crypt was truly terrifying. Her heart hammered wildly in her throat the entire time, and the queasiness and nausea of real fear made her wonder at times if she would make it. Only the grim determination to get to Spike – at first just to be with him, and on that last trip with the hope of curing him – had made it possible for her to keep going.

~*~

_On that last night, Xander had already gone upstairs by the time she arrived, and thankfully she didn't have to linger just out of sight in the tunnel for whoever was on watch to slip upstairs. Hanging there in the darkness made her feel extremely vulnerable. For a moment when she first entered the crypt, she sank to the floor, shaking with a dreadful mixture of fear and relief. She forced herself to take deep cleansing breaths, determined to gain control over her trembling body the way her mother had taught her to during the awful first months of her parents separation, when she'd been prone to panic attacks._

_Finally, Dawn had set aside the stake and the cross she'd been clutching with desperate tightness, one in each fist. She rose, removing a packet of Buffy's blood from one of her mother's big old purses which she had slung over her shoulder and across her body, as she crossed to the mat on the floor where Spike lay. She'd thawed and warmed the blood at home, and though it probably wasn't at that perfect 98.6 degrees, it wasn't cold either. _

_God, he looked so awful. Like a skeleton, really, with skin stretched tightly over it. She was so afraid of losing him. Of losing one of the few people in her world who had not abandoned her. If she could do anything to prevent that… Grimly, she snipped open a corner of the bag containing her sister's blood with the scissors she had brought along. _

_Spike's eyes popped open, and she didn't know if it was the sound she made as she settled in next to him on the floor, or just some reflex on his part. Or – he couldn't have scented the blood, could he? His eyes met hers, and there was one of those brief moments of recognition deep within them._

_She tried a smile. "I have something for you," she told him._

_His nostrils flared slightly as she dipped her finger into the fluid, then she brought it to his mouth, coating his lips with the blood._

_He didn't move, didn't even lick at the blood._

_She tried again. And then again. Nothing. _

_She tried to control her fear and panic. Please, please, please…_

_Finally, she forced her finger past his lips and into his mouth, smearing the blood directly onto his tongue._

_Okay, she thought, this just officially moved to the top of the list of Most Totally Gross Things I Have Ever Done. Do it, she told herself. Don't think about it, just do it. You can do this, Dawn. You can._

_And – she got a reaction. She saw his mouth move, saw something in his eyes change. She repeated the motion. Again, and then again._

_She almost cried when he began opening his mouth in anticipation of the next finger of blood. After ten minutes of feeding him in that manner, when he lifted a hand and reached toward the bag, pulling it closer to his mouth, she felt tears fill her eyes. And when the bag was at last empty and he showed no signs of bringing anything back up, she lowered her head into her hands and released some of the terrible tension and fear wracking her body by letting a few of those tears flow. Then she collected herself and pulled another bag of blood out of her purse. _

_An hour after he'd finished the second bag, she left him sleeping, and returned home._

_In the morning, she got the welcome news that he was up and moving again. Though he was grossly thin and, according to __Willow__, for the first time really looked like the walking corpse he was, he seemed to be __otherwise okay. He hadn't fed in front of them, refusing the offered human blood. But otherwise, he seemed able to function quite normally. Or well, like Spike, anyway. Stand, walk, scowl, sit, turn on the telly. Everything but talk. And smirk._

_He didn't say a word to anyone, or in any other way respond to their comments and questions. For the most part, she was told, he acted as though he was alone in the crypt. After enduring a couple hours of Scoobie chatter, he had laid down on his bier, an action that had resulted in blessed silence. Apparently they thought he wanted a nap._

_Dawn insisted on being taken to see him. Now that he was up, she couldn't imagine what objections the others could come up with to keep them apart. Apparently her imagination needed work, because, with the exception of __Tara__, they'd all came up with at least one._

_He was still too sick, he didn't look good, he might frighten her, he was a vampire, for God's sake. Blah, blah, blah._

_But in this Dawn put her foot down, very openly, and very firmly. She would see him, and if they didn't like it, they could take their objections and shove them up their..._

_She'd been cut off pretty abruptly at that point by Giles, but her determination had apparently come across, and the next day she was allowed to venture to the crypt with __Willow__. The meeting was very quiet. Spike didn't speak to either of them, but he returned Dawn's hug and sat near her on the ratty old sofa. Dawn chatted a little about a movie __Tara__ had taken her to, and about a party she was invited to at a friend's house._

_When she and __Willow__ left, Spike moved forward and hugged her. She'd been a little surprised by that, trying to remember if he'd ever initiated any contact between them in the past. There had been that night at the hospital after, well, after the tower. But other than that one time, she wasn't really sure. It didn't matter. She returned the hug gratefully._

_"Later," he'd whispered to her._

_In the future, whenever he was asked,  Spike would always insist he had no memory of anything that had happened to him after he'd placed Buffy's body back on the slab at the morgue. His first memory of anything after that was of finding himself standing in front of the telly in his crypt, staring at a sleeping Harris, and wondering what the hell the boy was doing in his home. Spike had watched as he woke, gathered what few wits he possessed about him, saw Spike, and screamed like a little girl._

_But as soon as Dawn had come to the crypt that afternoon to see him, he'd known what she had done. It had pounded through his brain with certainty._

_Buffy's blood – Dawn. Buffy's blood – Dawn. _

_She'd hardly managed to get to her bedroom that night before he appeared at her window, knocking softly for admittance. It was still quite early, just after __10:00__, and she signaled him to stay as quiet as possible when she let him in._

_He'd been waiting for her, and he didn't waste time in small talk. He came straight to the point. Why not? They both knew why he was there._

_"You have more of the Slayer's blood?" he asked bluntly._

_Dawn just looked at him and nodded. She wasn't sure she wanted to know how he was so certain it was Buffy's blood she'd brought to him. He hadn't ever tasted it before, had he? _

_"Yeah, but it's downstairs – in the basement, I mean, and we'll have to wait 'til everyone is asleep before we can go get it."___

_"Scoobies don't wanna share the wealth, I s'pose?"___

_"Huh?" Dawn was confused. What would the Scoobies want with Buffy's blood?_

_"Jes – ah, never mind. Figured they weren't real likely to wanna share her blood with me."_

_"Yeah," she agreed, understanding now. "I guess that's one of the reasons I didn't ask them. I just brought it to you on my own."_

_Spike's eyes drilled into hers from the sickeningly skeletal angles of his face. "And don't think we won't be talking about that, bit."_

_Dawn lifted her chin and crossed her arms. "Got something you wanna say about it? Say it now."_

_He stared at her in silence, proud of her for standing up to him._

_"That last night.__ I told your sis that, anything happened, I'd watch out for you. The Scoobies have been yappin' at me for almost two days. Guess they feel they have to keep talkin' even if I'm not sayin' much." Or anything, for that matter. "But I heard enough. They've got no idea what happened. Way I got it figured, you snuck into my crypt through the tunnels. Not real safe, pint-sized. Doubt big sis would approve."_

_"Well, she's not here is she?" Dawn said defiantly and Spike's eyes went as cold and dead as he looked._

_Dawn took a step back, appalled by what she had said, and her arms fell to her sides, bravado gone.___

_"I'm sorry," she told him sincerely. "Sorry. I don't know what's making me so – nasty and bitchy."_

_Seeing her pain, Spike forcibly swallowed his own._

_"Genetic make-up?" he ventured, trying to lighten the mood. "God knows your sis had bitchiness down to an art form." _

_Dawn smiled, even laughed a little. "Oh my god, yeah. The stories I could tell you about bitchy Buffy... I used to call her that, you know, in all capital letters: 'BITCHY BUFFY, BITCHY BUFFY'. It used to drive her nuts." Dawn paused, remembering her own shrieks as Buffy chased her down the stairs. Her older sister only gave up the chase when Dawn ducked behind their mother for protection. Dawn paused, waited, blinked at tears, and controlled herself. " Mom had her bitchy side too. Especially if you woke her up before __9:00__ on Sunday morning."___

_"Your mum?__ Really?"_

_Spike had fond memories of some of the times he'd seen Joyce in a temper, particularly wielding an ax. She'd been a damn fine woman, he thought. Fierce. He liked that. But his surprised, disbelieving tone encouraged Dawn to reminisce and she started to, slowly at first. Soon she was talking freely about her mom and Buffy. She sat on her bed, and Spike leaned against the wall near the window, listening. He nodded or injected an offhand comment here and there to spur her on. His interest ensured that she kept talking quietly until the house was silent and still. He didn't rush her even then, letting her share her pain and her memories until she seemed to run out of steam and suggested herself that they should head downstairs to get the blood._

_He'd been desperately hungry by then, anxious to feed. But even Dawn's neck didn't look appealing. He wanted his Slayer's blood. Nothing else. Even the fact that it was apparently Buffy's blood that had created Dawn, Buffy's blood that ran through the young girl's veins, didn't matter. He wanted his Slayer's blood. Just hers._

_As he eyed the supply Dawn showed him in the freezer, his mind was already calculating how long he could make it last. The thought of mixing her rich blood with other blood – any other blood – revolted him. If he was religious at all, he'd think it sacrilegious to even contemplate such a thing._

_But he had to be practical. For the next several weeks anyway, he had things to do, things to kill, one young girl to protect. And since he had no idea if he could keep down any blood but hers, he'd better at least try mixing it with something else, make it last as long as possible._

_And savor every powerful, intoxicating drop._

~*~__

Once they arrived at the Summers house, Spike was able to distract Dawn from her worries about his health by furthering her instruction in the many and varied forms of cheating at cards. The girl was a natural. Her ability to stack the deck was improving daily, and, even with those apparently genetically small Summers hands, she could palm an ace with the best of them.

He was damn proud of his girl.

Tomorrow was Saturday, and Dawn was expected at the Magic Box by 9:00 am. Although she helped out there more often, she was officially 'on the payroll' two evenings a week – Tuesdays and Thursdays , which seemed to be the big 'magical needs' shopping nights – and Saturdays. The little bit of spending money she was earning seemed to give her a small feeling of independence, and it was a safe job for her, working under watchful Scoobie eyes. 

Tired out by the long day she'd had, she was in bed by 10:30. By the time the witches arrived home only half an hour later, Spike was practically climbing the walls. He'd never admit it to his girl, but being in the house on Revello Drive was agony for him. While Dawn was awake and distracting him with her chatter, he could bear it. But once she went off to bed, he felt as though the walls were literally closing in on him. Surrounded by photos of Buffy, memories of Buffy, and worst of all, catching elusive whiffs of his dead Slayer's scent in the air, was, for him, a silent and extremely effective form of torture. He hated being in the Summers house, and had to brace himself every night when he walked in the door with Dawn.

Willow and Tara came in, greeting him as they always did. And, as had become his habit, he avoided their eyes, ignored their overtures, and left the house without a word to either of them.

Time to scare up something to kill. In the past, a decent spot of violence had always soothed him. No reason to think that wouldn't be the end result again sometime soon.

~*~


	4. Chapter Four

**'Journeys' by Mary**

~*~

WE are shaped and fashioned by what we love. 

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

~*~

**Part One – Promise to a Lady**

WHY did I love her? 

Because it was her; because it was me.

– Montaigne

~*~

See notes, etc. preceding Chapter One.

****

****

**Chapter Four**

It felt good. He had always loved the brawl, the challenge, everything all fists and fangs. Much more satisfying than all that bleedin' 'art of the kill' garbage Angelus and Darla always used to waste time oohin' and aahin' about. Tonight, though, the fight didn't last long enough. Spike even tried to prolong the battle, but the two vamps were young and inexperienced – who was turning these idiots anyway? he wondered. Even givin' them every opportunity, they were reduced to dust in a matter of minutes.

Spike growled, his fist meeting the brick wall of the alleyway in frustration, and anger, and pain. Again, then again. Then the right hand. Again. Maybe the physical pain would...

"Oh, stop!" 

The voice was full of distress and he spun toward the sound, ready to lash out, to maim, to kill.

It was the woman. The ones the fledglings had been about to make into a meal when he'd happened upon the scene. Mindin' his own damn business. Immediately he was stuck by the horrifying thought – bloody hell, he hadn't been _protectin' her_, had he?

He assured himself he had _not. He'd just been lookin' for a fight, like any self-respecting evil demon should be of a night._

"Please, stop. Your poor hands – look at them..." she trailed off as her eyes lifted from the bloody mess of his hands to his eyes.

He was in game face. Why wasn't she runnin' for her life? Screamin', damn it? Couldn't he have that, at least? The ability to instill fear in mortals who didn't know he was incapable of hurtin' them? Had that, too, been taken from him?

Enraged, furious with fate, he leapt toward her, fangs bared, yellow eyes flashing.

The woman flattened herself against the brick wall in terror.

"Please, I can't, I only meant..." The sight and scent of her rampant fear soothed Spike to some degree, which worked to his advantage. If he'd touched her, he'd be screamin' and clutchin' his head in agony, wouldn't he? And how bleedin' scary was that?

"That's better," he snarled, pinning her to the wall with his presence. "You're wise to show fear, because, woman, I am all your nightmares come to pass."

He watched as she closed her eyes and turned her face away from him, waiting for him to strike. She didn't beg or plead or cry. Just clutched her fear close and shut him out. 

Bugger it all to hell.

She was wearin' her hair in the same style Joyce had started favorin' before she died.

Spike pushed away from her and turned to go, mangled hands already reaching for a cigarette, as his features shifted back to their human form. Satisfaction was becoming a damn bitch to come by.

"Thank you for saving my life."

He froze. _What the hell had she just said?_

He didn't turn back to her. His hands were shaking – bloody shaking – as he went ahead and lit his fag. He took another step away.

"I've seen you before."

He spun back to face her, leather whipping around him. Black menace.

_"Who the bleedin' hell are you?"_ he demanded furiously.

"Emily Huggins." Her voice had gained strength. "I own the flower shop," she went on, nodding her head to the back door of the small flower shop they were standing next to.

"I've seen you back here before, usually sometime shortly before midnight. Almost every night the last couple of weeks."

Don't say it, don't say it, don't...

"I've seen you taking flowers from those I've had to put out."

Spike swallowed, his face a frozen mask.

Emily relaxed a little when he said nothing. More importantly, when he didn't jump at her again or try to eat her.

"I always dislike having to put out flowers that are perfectly fine, just a moment past their prime. It seems such a waste. But I know they won't sell in the morning, so I..." her voice trailed off. "I just, I just wanted you to know that, well, you're welcome to them." Her chin came up in defiance when he leveled icy blue eyes on hers. "Please take as many as you want. I want – I'm happy to have them find a home."

Spike took a drag off his cigarette, and inhaled deeply, his jaw clenched. He couldn't think of One. Bloody. Thing. To. Say.

He turned and strode away, duster billowing about him.

Sometimes image really _was everything._

"I meant what I said," Emily called after him.

As soon as he was certain he was well out of her sight, Spike broke into a run.

~*~

His crypt was dark. He rarely bothered to light candles anymore. Nothin' to see anyway. And he belonged in the dark. He was a vampire, right? Creature of the night.

_No light for the likes of him_.

He went straight to the refrigerator. Time to mix up a little Buffy cocktail. One part Slayer blood, three parts whatever else was on hand.

In all his years as a vampire, he had never craved blood like he craved hers. He carefully doled out his dwindling supply in small portions, like a money less addict planning his next fix from what was available. Just so much per day. All at once? Or a little now, a little more later?

And then he would sip it, savor it, licking the glass clean greedily. He could taste her in every drop. Hot and strong and powerful.

_Buffy._

He'd gone from the weakened, almost skeletal state that Dawn had found him in to the strongest he'd ever been in a few short weeks. He was still too thin, his face too full of shadowed angles, but strength surged through his veins, and the power he could unleash while fighting truly terrified his opponents.

He gloried in the strength her blood gave him. Relished it.

The aphrodisiac qualities of Slayer blood were ruthlessly ignored. He couldn't – _couldn't_ fantasize. Wouldn't. The first time her blood had rushed to his groin, he'd almost doubled over in pain at the very thought of seeking out or providing himself with sexual gratification. So he simply – didn't. He had power, didn't he? And he had the power to deny and ignore whatever he damn well wanted to ignore. His lips twisted. Master of his own domain, he was.

Spike ran his tongue along the edge of his glass, swiping up the last tiny droplet of blood. At this rate, Buffy's blood would be completely gone in less than a month. Would he be able to keep down blood that was not spiked with the powerful blood of his Slayer? He didn't know.

Didn't care, either.

~*~

During the long hours of the day, he was, for the most part, trapped in his crypt by the sunlight. More and more often now, with his Slayer's blood singing in his veins, he found himself escaping into the sewers, searching for some beastie dwelling in the vast underground of Sunnydale to pummel and kill. Searching for something – anything – to occupy his mind, his body, his fists. But sometimes he still lay in silence atop his bier, flirting with desperately needed sleep. 

And she would come to him. 

Sometimes she came in dreams. One dream flowed into another, differing radically in mood and tone. He knew they were dreams. Just dreams. He should be able to open his eyes and the images – both good and bad – would be dispelled. But he couldn't. His eyes refused to open. The dreams held him tightly in thrall, and he couldn't break away. The images pressed into him relentlessly, without mercy. 

_He and Dawn were on the tower. But this time, this time, Doc proved no deterrent for him. Spike was able to toss the strange little demon to his death, preventing him from cutting Dawn. When Buffy finished with Glory and joined them atop the tower, there was no need for her to leap. Buffy and Dawn embraced..._

_He could hear Willow in his mind, telling him to run, to get up the tower. But he couldn't move. He looked down, only to see that his feet had grown roots and were firmly planted deep in the earth. He couldn't move. Couldn't. Budge. But he could hear Dawn screaming, crying out to him for help, calling his name. He could see Buffy falling, falling. He was stuck in the ground, unable to move an inch as he watched her die. Again..._

_They were making love. Oh god, she felt so good, better than he'd ever imagined. He was moving within her, deep, strong, and she was there, right there with him, responding to every touch, every thrust. Their eyes were locked together and he could feel her, feel her tightening around him. She was coming, coming, and she was calling his name. His..._

_The tower didn't seem as tall this time. He knew he could defeat Doc. He felt strong, invincible. He tried to convey his confidence to a terrified Dawn. But she couldn't hear him, couldn't seem to see him. He swaggered across the grid work toward Doc, but the little man didn't turn to face him. Instead he kept advancing on Dawn. Spike was angry at being ignored. People shouldn't ignore death when it walked up behind them. Spike charged him, leaping at him in a tackle that would take them both down quickly. But he flew right through the other man, landing on the hard metal between Doc and Dawn. Enraged, he rose and repeated the motion with the same result. Then he realized. They couldn't see him, couldn't even sense him. He was invisible to them. He stared at the space his hands should occupy. Even he couldn't see them. He wasn't there. He didn't exist. He was dead..._

_She was sleeping in his arms. Naked and warm against him. He lay awake listening to the strong beat of her heart..._

_"It's your fault, yours. You incompetent scum, you worthless, soulless demon. She's dead because of you. You're responsible." The Watcher and Harris advanced on him with stakes raised to strike. His arms were pinned behind him in a relentless hold. He struggled to break free, twisting around to see what it was that held him so tightly. It was Dawn, her eyes glittering with malicious hatred..._

_He knocked the knife from Doc's hands, watching it as it fell into the rubble far below. Doc couldn't cut Dawn. She was safe. He'd saved her. Buffy and Dawn turned to him and smiled..._

_They were fighting. He and Buffy. Fists and words flying furiously. And he could hit her without his head exploding..._

_She was still alive. Alive. Oh god, oh god, she'd been buried alive..._

_They were making love. She knew exactly how to move to make him groan, how to touch him to make him gasp. They'd done this hundreds of times, thousands. He knew her body better than he knew his own, and she knew his. He was going to come, could feel the beautiful build up of pressure, the wild pleasure. Then his fangs were buried in her neck and he was drinking her, coming violently inside her, taking her and – oh god, no, draining her, turning her, even as she called out that she would love him forever. Forever and ever and ever..._

Sometimes she just came to him. He could swear he was awake, open eyed and staring into the dark emptiness of his crypt. He couldn't see her, but he could feel her presence, could catch her scent in the air which grew heavy around him, weighing him down.

_Buffy._

And then, her touch. Ghostly fingers whispering over his flesh, tracing delicate lines against his pale skin. Her touch was so soft. It soothed him, calmed him. Then it aroused him, making him ache for more.

_Buffy._

Her breath warmed his flesh; words he couldn't make out were spoken softly against his ear, his throat. He wanted to understand her, wanted to know what it was she was telling him, why she was coming to him, what she wanted, needed. Please, love, stay here with me. Stay here. Stay.

_Buffy. _

But of course she didn't. He could feel her presence slipping away, leaving, and he tried desperately to hold onto – her, her essence. He wanted to cloak himself in it, wrap it tightly around him, cling to it. But he never succeeded. She always slipped away.

_Buffy._

He didn't know which was worse – the dreams or the waking visions, the passionate scenarios of sex, and joy, and saving, or the nightmarish ones of failure and death.

When he woke it was always the same. In those first dark moments, dreams and reality were so mixed up and twisted in his mind that he couldn't differentiate between them. Every single time he woke, he honestly did not know if Buffy was dead or alive. Just. Did. Not. Know. His mind worked frantically to sort through all the dreams, all the pain, all the horror and the guilt and the hope until reality could be ascertained. Until he knew for sure. 

_Until the world crashed down around him again._

No. No.

She was dead.

His Slayer was dead.

It was like losing her all over again every time he woke. And, every time he woke, he laid there, his face pressed against his upper arm, buried in the crook formed by his bent elbow, as the agony of loss started screaming its now familiar path through every cell of his body all over again.

_Buffy. Buffy._

He hadn't cried since he'd held her body through the night in the morgue.

~*~


	5. Chapter Five

**'Journeys' by Mary**

~*~

WE are shaped and fashioned by what we love. 

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

~*~

**Part One – Promise to a Lady**

WHY did I love her? 

Because it was her; because it was me.

– Montaigne

~*~

See notes, etc. preceding Chapter One.

**Chapter Five**

"I wasn't sure if you'd come," Giles admitted. "You've been pretty reclusive since, er, well, since –"

"Dawn told me you wanted to talk, Watcher," Spike interrupted. "She asked me to come." His tone strongly suggested no other incentive could have brought him to this meeting.

"Yes. I shall have to thank her then." Giles didn't bother to mention that, to his knowledge, this was the first time Spike had spoken to anyone other than Dawn since he'd left the hospital the morning after Buffy's death.

Giles was seated behind his desk in his small office just off the training room at the Magic Box , while Spike leaned with seeming negligence against the closed door, his hands buried in the pockets of his duster. The blond's eyes seemed fixed on some spot on the floor just in front of his feet.

Giles studied him for a moment. "You seem to be regaining your health," he offered. It had been close to a month since Spike had been back among the living, as Willow had rather oddly phrased it.

Spike shifted uncomfortably, before raising his head, and just for a moment, meeting the other man's eyes.

"Haven't thanked any of you lot for lookin' out for me," he acknowledged. "Bit told me 'bout the research and the offers of blood." He glanced at Giles' arm as the Watcher's hand went to his left wrist instinctively. Spike looked away. "'ppreciate it," he muttered.

"Yes, er, well," Giles was stammering a bit as he often did when he felt out of his element. "You were very helpful to us when we were on the run from Glory, and I felt – we all felt that Buffy would have wanted us to try to help you."

Even though his head was bent downward again, Giles could see the strong line of Spike's jaw tighten.

"I've been curious about the condition we found you in. Do you have any explanation? Do you know what caused the problem with your inability to –er, eat? Or, for that matter, what caused things to go back to normal?"

Spike looked over Giles' shoulder at the shelves of books lining the back wall of the office. "That what you wanted to talk to me about?" he asked after a moment.

"I am interested in that, yes. But there are some other things of greater importance right now."

"Let's get straight to the good stuff then, shall we?"

Spike remained in his slouched position, but his shoulders tightened a little as he braced himself for the Watcher's words. He was expecting it, after all. No way the blasted Scoobies were gonna let the bit keep spending so much time with him. After all, _evil, _right_?_ He hoped that if he played it cool and kept the temper Angelus had always chided him for under control, he might be able to salvage a couple of nights a week with his girl.

"Right then," Giles sighed. "I will admit, it pains me to have come to this conclusion. But what it is – what I need – oh bugger it." He gathered himself. "Actually, I was hoping I could persuade you to help out with some problems that have arisen."

Spike's head came up in surprise, and he allowed a small smile to soften the curve of his mouth briefly. "Oooh. _That_ hurt, didn't it, Rupert?"

It was the nearest Giles had seen to the old Spike since Buffy's loss nearly two months ago. There was even the faintest trace of a smirk on the vampire's lips. But it was quickly gone, and when he spoke again, his tone was serious.

"What's the problem, Watcher?"

Giles briefly explained how demon activity seemed to have fallen off both before and after Glory's destruction but now appeared to be on the rise again, and about the difficulties they would have in fighting new threats without Buffy.

"You're lookin' for muscle, then," Spike summed up.

"I guess it could be put that way, yes."

"I'm in." The words were stark, spoken without hesitation.

"I can only offer to pay you a small amount, I'm afraid," Giles added, and the blond frowned.

"You can keep your bleedin' money, Watcher." Spike's voice was tight. "I said I'm in."

The Watcher studied Spike openly, trying to read him. The vampire looked older somehow, he realized. Weary, worn, angry. And hurting. He kept to himself so much now, coldly refusing – ignoring – what few overtures they extended. At one time, not so very many months ago, he had sought out their company, had at times, seemed to almost crave it, to be a part of their group. Now, though, he seemed not only disinterested, but almost hostile to the idea of being with any of them. Buffy's gone, Giles told himself. Spike no longer needs to seek our company to be near her. That was logical, right? So why, then, didn't Giles himself buy that explanation? 

Only Dawn seemed capable of touching him on any level at all now. And Giles had to admit he was somewhat impressed with the devotion the blond was showing the young girl. Several times in the last week he'd overheard Dawn giggling as she shared with Anya something Spike had said or done. There had been so little laughter in her life for so long…

Giles straightened in his chair, and got down to business.

"Apparently, we have a dragon in the area."

Spike cocked a brow. "I remember seeing a dragon or two when the portal opened." He'd been lying uselessly on the ground where Doc had thrown him, helpless to get back up the tower to Buffy and Dawn, helpless to protect them, to save them. Helpless to stop Buffy's descent as she jumped and he watched her fall. Falling, falling. Helpless, useless, as he watched her body slam into the ground only a dozen feet from his own. Useless as he watched her die.

He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, and swallowed, attempting to force away the visions of his failure.

Failing, as always. They never left him.

"In monitoring police records, Willow has come across half a dozen reports of a dragon in flight over the last few nights." 

Giles spread a map of the area out on his desk, and Spike pulled up a chair, turning it around to straddle it as he leaned over the desk to watch as Giles indicated the places the dragon had been spotted.

"There aren't any reports yet of it landing in populated areas, or attacking people, but we can surmise that such an occurrence will come about. And I hope we can act before it does."

"What's the plan, then?"

Giles allowed himself a faint smile. "We're still working on the details, of course. But a dragon is quite large, or at least reports indicate this one is. There aren't that many places it can be concealing itself. And since we stand little chance of bringing it down while it's in flight, we need to find its lair."

Spike didn't hesitate. "The caves, here," He indicated the area just outside Sunnydale where there was a large network of caves. "Some of the caverns are quite large. Plenty of room for a dragon – or several, for that matter. Any idea if there's more than one?"

"No. You just said you thought you remembered seeing a dragon or two. How certain are you that you saw more than one?"

Spike tried to remember. Had he seen more than one dragon, or had he only seen the same one circling? He wasn't sure, and didn't want to spend any more time visualizing that night. It filled his dreams and nightmares enough as it was.

"Sorry," he said. "'m not sure." 

"One will be problem enough," Giles cautioned. "More than one…" he let his voice trail off.

"Or a breeding pair," Spike added. 

Giles' mind had played with that idea with a sense of dread, and he tried to ignore the fact that there seemed to be a bit of anticipation in Spike's voice.

"Tara has a lot of knowledge of dragon lore. We're not sure if any of that will be of use to us, but since we seem to be without the latest edition of 'Dragon Hunting Made Easy'," his dryly sarcastic tone made Spike's lips curve again briefly as the other man continued, "we'll be taking a hard look at what she knows. Weaknesses. Strengths. Things we need to prepare for."

"Don't know how likely it is, but if it can breathe fire like in legends, that'll be a problem for me," Spike reminded him. "For you, too, I'm sure, but, still, I'm more flammable than you lot."

He stood, moving his chair back to its original position.

"I'll go have a look around the caves tomorrow," he told Giles. "See if anything looks promising."

"Can you get there safely during the day?"

"Can always find ways to get about," Spike assured him. "Hellmouth," he added as if that explained everything. Which, in a way, it did.

"But I thought – er, I mean. I understood vampires slept during the day. That they had little control over that need."

Spike eyed him solemnly as he lit a cigarette. "Sleep is highly overrated, mate." He took a long, satisfying drag on his cigarette, ignoring Giles' disparaging looks at the curling smoke.

"I'd be terribly interested in learning..." Giles broke off abruptly, realizing it wasn't really the appropriate time to ask Spike to tutor him in vampiric habits and culture, even if he would dearly love to access his first hand knowledge. If Spike continued to work with them, perhaps he could persuade the blond to provide him with information currently unavailable to the Council. Anya's words about 'knowing thine enemy' had rankled. How accurate were the Council's texts? he wondered. Were there inaccuracies that needed correcting? The next Slayer, whoever she was, may be in need of more complete information, and he felt it was his duty as a Watcher to do everything in his power to gain that knowledge.

"There are other matters that we'll need to look at once the dragon has been taken care of," Giles changed the subject. "Glory's minions, for instance –"

"—are not a problem." Spike finished for him.

Giles raised a brow in question.

"Not a problem, Watcher."

Spike didn't elaborate, but Giles didn't need him to. Spike had been hunting.

"They're _all_ taken care of?" he asked.

"Near as I can tell."

"Very well, then," Giles said by way of thanks. "And Doc?"

Spike's entire body went rigid, and Giles hoped he'd never see the expression on his face directed at himself or at anyone he cared about. The smooth, chiseled, lines of Spike's still too thin face twisted into a mask of fury infinitely more frightening than his vampiric features.

"Not. Yet." Spike gritted out, voice icy with hatred. And determination.

Giles felt a shudder go through his body. He could almost pity Doc when Spike at last found the little demon. Almost. But not quite. He'd cut Dawn. Opened the portal. Forced the death of his surrogate daughter. Ripper peeked through.

"When you find him, I'd like to be there for the finish," he told Spike. "If I can't be there – well, then, my shout at the pub afterward."

Spike nodded. "I plan to make it painful," he warned. "Blood. Gore. Screams of agony."

Giles met his eyes steadily, and repeated Spike's words from earlier. "I'm in."

The two stared at each other in complete understanding.

~*~

She was touching him, her hands moving over his back with long, soft strokes. Spike moaned as she leaned down to whisper into his ear, and he felt the warm caress of her breasts against the cool skin of his back.

_Buffy._

Even distracted by the brush of her flesh against his, he kept listening closely, trying to understand what she was saying.

He never could.

~*~

The caves just outside Sunnydale were familiar, and easily accessible, territory for Spike. Apparently some former mayor of good old Sunnyhell had been very demon friendly, and had had city engineers connect the city's elaborate underground tunnel system directly to the caverns in several places. Why did that not surprise him? He'd stayed in them during his search for the Gem of Amarra, and later, Harmony's little gang had made it their headquarters during her brief and rather endearing attempt at a reign of terror. Adam had housed himself here. He'd even stayed somewhere in their vast depths with Dawn while Buffy ran off to keep Willow from getting killed by that bitch hell god, Glory. 

The caves were complicated, huge, and largely unexplored by the human populace. Perhaps the humans were smarter that they generally behaved, he thought. The underground labyrinth was usually infested with examples of half the demon species currently inhabiting the earth. The Hellmouth was a powerful draw to many demons, usually the worst types, and then the worst individuals of each type. The legendary power of the Hellmouth, the hundreds of prophecies that seemed intertwined with it acted like a magnet to those who loved chaos and destruction.

But not today.

The unusual emptiness of the caverns told Spike something big was up. Big enough to be a dragon?

And if it was a dragon doing such a good job making the other demons scarce – just how powerful was it?

He explored with care, taking his time to be thorough. The caves could be very confusing, and he was glad he was familiar with them. Wouldn't pay to stumble into a mess and not be able to find his way out, would it? Though he had to admit, a bit of a set to would be nice, and he certainly hoped to come across at least one demon today capable of giving him a bit of a challenge before he killed it. 

Spike wasn't quite sure how he felt about the Watcher's request for his help. He liked killing things. He was good at it. If he couldn't kill to feed, as he hadn't been able to since the Initiative had performed its little unauthorized medical experimentation on him, then killing demons was an alternate outlet for him that he enjoyed. It served to soothe the demon within, and his vampiric need for bloodletting. So, for those reasons, he supposed he was glad the Watcher had approached him.

He wasn't sure he understood _why_ he'd been asked though. Hadn't the Slayer's death proved his incompetence? Why would any of the bleedin' Slayerettes think he was capable of coming through on something important? He hadn't that night, had he? 

_The night at the tower. _

None of them had actually come out and blamed him out loud, but he knew they were aware of just whose fault it was his Slayer was dead. He couldn't even look into their eyes; couldn't bring himself to face the accusation he knew he would find there. He supposed they were just looking for muscle, maybe even expendable muscle, and he fit the bill more that anyone else who happened to be available right now. Harris was probably laying his hopes on the 'expendable' part, hoping for a way to be rid of him without having to wield the stake himself. 

_Wanker._

He was a Master Vampire from the most elite and powerful line of vampires ever to exist. _Aurelius. A weasely little demon like Doc should have proven no problem for him, and for the ten thousandth time, he tried to understand just where and how he had failed so tragically. Had he simply been unprepared for Doc's tricks? Had he been too cocky, too sure of his own prowess as a warrior? Or had the fact that it had mattered more than ever before been his downfall? His reckless disregard for his own safety and well being had usually served him well in battle. Only when protecting another – usually Drusilla, or in the case in question, Dawn – had he acted with hesitation that had led or contributed to defeat._

Spike felt a sudden stark fear run through him. What if Dawn was endangered again, and he failed again, this time leading to_ her death?_

Dawn. Dead.

Failing her. Again. 

Failing his Slayer. Again.

He put a hand against the wall of the cave momentarily, enduring the wave of sickness he felt. Sod it all anyway. Caring about people was damned inconvenient. Not to mention truly terrifying. And fear was not a sensation he was accustomed to feeling or dealing with.

Caring about Dawn, a girl so unable to protect or defend herself, was even worse than caring about Dru or Buffy. At least they'd had the natural weapons of strength and power at their disposal.

Things Dawn was without. The fear of failing her rocked him, and the nausea increased. He swallowed.

_Sonofabloodybitch._

He wasn't going to fall back into the state he'd apparently descended to just after his Slayer's death.  He damn well couldn't. He had _responsibilities_, sod it all.

_How unbloodybelievable was that? Bleedin' tragic, it was._

Gathering himself, he went on. 

The smell of rotting human flesh assaulted him just around the next curve in the passage he was following. Well, that didn't help the nausea, he thought in disgust. The lack of sanitary measures by some demons was appalling. Didn't they have a care for others? Especially for demons such as vampires who had a highly developed sense of smell?

The smell led him into a large cavern, currently empty of anything living. Spike took in the pile of human and animal body parts, some of which had been gnawed on, and most of which appeared to have been torn painfully from their host. Something fairly large, then, he'd wager, if it could tear a person apart limb from limb. Or something extremely powerful. Or both. Vampires could tear the heads off of humans or off of several other varieties of demons, but only when fully vamped and in the midst of blood lust. He'd never known vamps to tear off arms and legs and pile them up. Not to mention the vast amounts of blood covering lots of the bits in the pile. No vampire worthy of the name would let that amount of blood go to waste.

He ran his mind over the demons he could think of whose behavior and feeding habits fit this scenario. Half a dozen came to mind off the top of his head. Two could be safely ruled out, he felt. Emg Demons and the Nepthys had never made their way out of the jungles of South America. They were closely related, both pretty noticeable and always traveled in groups of at least a dozen. He was sure he'd have heard something if any of their kind had been spotted anywhere in the vicinity. And Sangga Demons, though they loved stockpiling their meat in just such a fashion, had little taste for human flesh, so he could probably cross them off the list too.

He raised the torch he was carrying, exploring the rest of the chamber. There were some very large, very deep and very fresh claw marks in the stone floor in several places. Balls. Some of those gouges were nearly five inches deep. In his experience, something that could claw that deeply into solid rock should, if at all possible, be avoided. And if the claw marks had been made by the same creature that was responsible for the pile of half eaten limbs and the occasional torso, he could cross two more possible demons species off his mental list. That left Geks.

Or something he had no previous knowledge of. Which would include dragons.

After another hour of examining the chamber and the adjacent passageways, Spike decided to go back to the Watcher with his information. The Scoobies could organize one of their all night research sessions. They pulled them often enough. They must enjoy them.

While they cracked the books, he thought he might work out for a bit in the training room of the Magic Box. Bloke should never get too complaisant. Maybe it was time to start training in earnest. 

A little stronger. A little faster.

A little more likely to be able to protect Dawn against any threat to her that might arise.

~*~


	6. Chapter Six

**'Journeys' by Mary**

~*~

WE are shaped and fashioned by what we love. 

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

~*~

**Part One – Promise to a Lady**

WHY did I love her? 

Because it was her; because it was me.

– Montaigne

~*~

See notes, etc. preceding Chapter One.

**Chapter Six **

Dawn loved the shop he took her to. It sold a variety of items, from live and silk flowers to statuary to garden structures to hand drawn greeting cards. It may have had stock similar to a dozen other stores in town, but the higher quality of the items as well as the creative displays set it apart. It was full of charming little nooks and surprises that had Dawn smiling and exclaiming with pleasure as she explored.

They wandered about the shop companionably, while Spike silently enjoyed Dawn's excitement.

"Here we go, bit," Spike announced. He indicated a statue of an angel about three feet tall. The male angel's wings were spread, its' robes billowing in an unseen wind, and it held a sword aloft, preparing to strike.

"Do you think we should get an angel with a sword?" Dawn questioned his choice. "How about this one?" she suggested instead, pointing out a cherubic little angel with a sweet, innocent face.

Spike practically snorted in disdain.

"Angels are warriors and guardians," he told her. "Your mum was a fierce woman," he recalled with pleasure. "Don't think she'd want some insipid little cupid hanging around forever. But if you want something all cute with wings and such, go for a fairy. 'Course most fairies are vain, bitchy little things, and I can't see how they'd be a good choice for guardin' a grave, but I do have to admit, they can be cute." He said 'cute' as though it was an extremely distasteful word. "At least, some of them," he qualified, frowning.

"You've seen fairies?"

"Well, yeah." He looked puzzled that she needed to ask.

"Where?"

He made a sound that sounded rather like 'pffft'. Dawn gawked.

"They're around, bit, if you look. Easier to come by back home in England. Big in gardens. Some fairy communities have been inhabiting the gardens of the great estates for more than a thousand years. The colonies are still pretty young. Fairies tend to like things more established. Don't like t' have t' pull up stakes too often. You try lookin' in some of the older gardens on the east coast, and you're sure to find some. And the Appalachian Mountains are bleedin' full of the little buggers."

Dawn was staring at him as though he had grown a second head. A neon colored second head. With ringlets.

"What?" he asked indignantly. "This is a flower shop. Ask Liza there about fairies. 'Spect she knows what's what."

"Liza?"

'The owner. Right over there – dark haired woman."

"You know her?"

"Yeah."

"How?"

"Never you mind. But if you want to know about fairies, and don't wanna take my word for it, go chat her up a bit."

Dawn looked at him as though he had just issued a dare. She lifted her chin and got that could-be-patented Summers Stubborn Look #7 in her eye, then headed over to 'chat up Liza for a bit'.

"Ma'am?"

"Yes, dear? How can I help you?" Emily Huggins asked, a hint of the British Isles still evident in her voice despite nearly twenty five years in the United States.

"My friend said you might know something about fairies."

"I might," Emily smiled. She nodded toward Spike. "Is that your friend?"

"Yeah. Spike. He said he knew you," Dawn threw out.

"Yes, I guess you could say that. He saved my life one night."

Dawn's eyes lit up. "He did?"

"He most certainly did."

"He's saved my life, too," Dawn told her in a confiding tone.

Emily smiled. Her eyes ran over the tall, pretty girl with the coltish limbs and gleaming hair.

"So he's kind of a hero, is he?"

"Yeah, I guess so. But don't tell him that. I don't think he'd like it. He likes to think he's all big evil and stuff."

Emily looked thoughtful. "I've lived in Sunnydale since I graduated from Berkley – more than twenty years now. There's not a lot that surprises me anymore. But, in some ways, he did."

"Yeah. I guess you could say he's kinda unique."

"And just how does a young girl like you know, er, someone like him?"

Dawn hesitated. "He – he kinda worked with my sister."

"But he doesn't any more?"

"No. She – she d-died a couple of months ago," Dawn admitted, totally forgetting that Giles had suggested they keep Buffy's passing as quiet as possible.

Maternal instincts Emily had never used in her own life, and really hadn't thought she possessed, seemed to bubble up. "I'm so sorry to hear that. You have my sympathy." Her eyes slid to Spike, who was strolling around the shop, touching things here and there, picking up small art pieces to examine, then setting them back down. She thought of the flowers she had taken to leaving out back each night. Special, sometimes unique, blossoms that she placed in a small bucket of water to help keep them fresh. Flowers that were almost always gone in the morning. She thought of the blond hair that she sometimes caught a glimpse of in the faint light of the alley where he had saved her life. "He was in love with your sister, wasn't he?"

"Yeah." Tears sparkled in Dawn's eyes. "Big time. I thought he was gonna die too, when she did." She glanced back at Spike too, and lowered her voice. "Sometimes I still worry that he will. You know, _die_." She swallowed. "And he's all I have. My Mom died too, just before Buffy."

"Oh, my dear child," Emily was clearly moved. "What's your name?"

Dawn told her, wondering if everyone from England said things like 'my dear child'. Well, everyone but Spike, that is. _He_ would never say anything so – Gilesy.

Emily stroked a hand over Dawn's hair, fighting tears of sympathy for a young girl she'd just met, then cleared her throat. "So, you want to know about fairies, hmm?"

"Yeah." Dawn was glad to leave the tear forming subjects behind, and was grateful that this woman seemed to know that. "I mean, I do know a little. I have read 'Shadow Castle'.

Dawn didn't want to appear completely ignorant.

Emily's face lit up. "That's one of my very favorite books," she said with genuine enthusiasm. One so seldom ran into another person who had read it. "Mika and Gloria..." her voice trailed off nostalgically.

"Robin and Bluebell," Dawn chimed in, grinning.

"And Flumpdoria!" Emily finished, and they smiled at each other in shared delight. Some books are meant to be treasured for a lifetime.

"Let me show you the Flower Fairies. I think you might like them." She led Dawn to an enchanting display of Cicely Mary Barker's little flower fairies. An array of dried, silk, and living plant materials had been used to create a woodsy and magical little haven for the tiny statues which had been mounted, tacked, and wired into half hidden spots among the foliage, and made to look as though they belonged there. "Fairies are often tied in with garden and plant lore..." she began and Dawn lost herself in the little four inch depictions of the fairies from the famous artist's books, listening to Emily's descriptions of the fairies and their creator.

"And why do you want to know about fairies, anyway?" Emily asked after Dawn had admired most of the little statues.

Dawn looked surprised. "Well, actually, we were talking about angels. I want to get one for my Mom's – well, for her grave. Spike says angels are warriors, and not cute and cuddly, and that we should –"

"He's right." Emily told her. She seemed to have no trouble following the explanation. "Angels can be pretty terrifying, by all accounts. Don't think of the little things you see flying around in a good many paintings. Think of the Archangels Michael and Gabriel instead. Messengers and warriors of God."

"Oh. Well, okay." Dawn decided she was willing to bow to their combined, and supposedly superior, adult knowledge. "We were looking at that one statue..." She gestured, indicating spread wings.

"I know the one you mean. The angel brandishing a sword. It's supposed to be Jhudiel, one of the lesser known archangels. He conquers evil with love and forgiveness, and bears the sword of justice and mercy. I love that one. His posture is so fierce, yet if you really look at his face, he seems so kind, too. Is this for your sister's grave?"

"No. For my Mom's. Buffy wouldn't... Buffy would be able to protect herself." Dawn mumbled.

"She must have been a very special person, your sister."

"Yeah, she was."

"Let's take a look at that statue, shall we?"

The price tag seemed to have disappeared by the time the 'looks like stone but is really made of some miraculous new material that is much lighter and doesn't know the meaning of biodegradable' statue had been carted up to the cash register. Dawn frowned at the price Liza quoted, sure that the angel had been priced much higher than that. Spike stood back a bit, letting Dawn take care of the transaction, but when he heard the price Emily gave Dawn, his eyes flew to those of the shopkeeper, and he inclined his head in silent gratitude. Emily smiled.

"This is great. Thanks so much, Liza." Dawn was happy and letting both of them know it.

"Liza?" Emily's brows rose.

"Isn't that your name?"

Emily looked at Spike, considering. "Eliza Dolittle, right?"

Spike just shrugged. To Dawn's amazement, he looked a little sheepish. Well, just for a moment, anyway. "Seemed fittin' – flower shop and all," he muttered.

Emily smiled at Dawn. "My name is Emily," she explained. "And that's what I usually go by," she added, laughing. "I hope you'll stop in again. Let me know how you're getting on. Even when you're not shopping. I always enjoy the company."

"That would be great!!" Dawn enthused. "Your shop is really, really nice."

"Thank you, Dawn. I enjoy it myself." Her eyes went from Dawn to Spike and back again. "You're both welcome here. Anytime."

~*~

They were halfway to the cemetery with the angel when Dawn stopped short. Spike turned to her, head tilting, blue eyes slightly annoyed at the hold up.

"What is it, bit?" He wanted to get to the cemetery before anyone saw him carting an angel down the street. Didn't exactly go with the image, did it?

"We didn't get anything for Buffy's grave," she told him.

Spike's lips firmed and he shifted the angel to his other shoulder, walking on as though she hadn't spoken.

Dawn tried to see his face, which was now partially hidden by the statue, but with the additional shadows cast by the angel's wings, it was too dark. She tried to ignore the sudden throb of pain in her chest, and followed him.

~*~

"The most famous star in Ursa Minor is Polaris, the North Star. It you were standing at the North Pole, Polaris would be almost directly overhead. That means that if you know how to find it in the sky, you can always tell which way is north. Comes in handy if you're lost in soddin' Moscow, let me tell you. It was also the most important star for navigating at sea. Sailors should still know how to navigate by the stars if you ask me. Can't always count on all those dials and such. Brit sailors can still get by without the modern bits and pieces, of course. Best in the world, they are." 

He'd been talking for quite some time now, and the more he talked, the more he sounded like some sort of bizarro 'Guide to the Night Sky' book. Written by someone from England.

"Duh. I've known about the North Star since I was like – two, Mr. Keep Looking Up."

They were lying side by side, flat on their backs, and just a few feet to the side of her mom's grave. They had finally placed the angel to their mutual satisfaction. Dawn had been amused by the way Spike had stood back, looking at the overall effect, before moving the piece a few inches closer to the simple headstone. He'd adjusted the angel's position three times before he'd seemed satisfied, sought her nod of approval, and drove the anchoring rod into the ground. He'd then mentioned the possibility of planting a rose bush and asked Dawn what type of rose her mum had preferred. Floribunda? Old English?

"Light pink," Dawn had stated definitely, and didn't understand why Spike had looked at her oddly, sucking in his cheeks.

"I'll give it some thought, then," he'd murmured, wigging Dawn out a little. What could Spike know about roses? Her expression must have revealed her surprise at associating Spike with gardening in anyway, because he had shrugged, and mentioned that his nan had been a keen gardener and had forced him to help her for hours on end when he was a boy. Dawn's incredulity increased. The entire idea of Spike as a little boy, of Spike with a _grandmother, was sending her somewhere far beyond wigged._

But now, laying there beside him, she had to admit she was enjoying his knowledge of the constellations and the night sky. It sure seemed to suit him more than gardening knowledge. She was impressed, and knew she really shouldn't be. After all, he lived in the dark, in the night. And he was old. Really, really old. If you added up all the hours he'd probably spent on his back looking at the night sky, it could be like – years, even. Geesh!

Draco, Antares, Orion. Spike pointed out various stars and constellations, telling her their stories, the myths and legends surrounding them. When he showed her Scorpio, he made a point of mentioning that those born under that astrological sign were the sexiest.

"Huh?" Dawn questioned.

"Common knowledge, pet," he stated with offhand confidence.

"And I suppose a certain blond vampire just happens to have been born under that sign?"

"Well, Dru turned me in November. So re-born, anyway," he affirmed. "And, believe me, luv, I'm much sexier as a vamp than I was as a human. So – proves my point."

"Really?" Dawn rolled onto her stomach, propping her chin in one hand as she studied him. "I bet you were, like, the coolest guy in your school. I mean – um – you did go to school, right?"

Spike rolled his eyes in disgust. "'Course I went to school, bit. Wasn't born in the Dark Ages, ya know, when only a few people were educated. I graduated from Oxford. Spent a year studying in Rome after that, then another year in the Greek Isles."

Dawn tried to work her mind around the idea of Spike studying in some stuffy English school, dressed like Giles. Ooh – or maybe he had dressed like Prince William. That picture was much better, she thought, visualizing the hunky young prince in whatever kind of jacket those tuxy looking things she'd seen him pictured in were called. The one with tails. She visualized him leaning against a stone pillar, head dipped as he looked up at her from under his lashes with his mother's eyes. Oh, god, yum! Dawn blinked. Spike. Right. Spike in school. Spike in Italy and Greece. It was even harder to picture him there, in such sun-drenched countries. It was really much, much easier to picture Prince William - Wills. Or, oh, oh, Wills in Greece, bare-chested, jet skiing in the Aegean. ..

"What did you study?" she asked, forcing herself out of her day-night-dreams of the young royal. It was sooo not her fault he was so totally dream-worthy.

"Literature. Philosophy. History. Languages." He spoke several languages fluently. It was one thing Angelus had actually appreciated about him – his ability to speak to the locals if necessary, as they traveled in Europe and Asia. He still found it easy to pick up languages and dialects, even demon languages. 

It sounded awfully boring to Dawn. "I'm gonna major in art," she told him. "I love sculpting and drawing, working in all sorts of different mediums. Creating things." She swung her feet back and forth, relaxing with him in a way she rarely did with her friends. "I'm gonna be way famous someday."

Spike raised a brow. "That so?"

"Yeah. Not, ya know, DaVinci famous. Or even Waterhouse famous. But famous." She relented a little. "Or at least known. Known is good for an artist. Well, so long as 'known' also sells," she grinned. "I've already talked to my art teacher about it tons of times. She is sooo cool. Ms. Nimue. Hey!" she said, struck by the similarity. "She studied in Europe too – three years in France after she finished grad school. Or maybe the years in France were part of grad school. I don't remember.

"Anyway. She's the coolest. Pretty and smart and funny. I love her classes. Wish I could have her all the time. If I have to go live with my dad in L.A., I'll just die. It'd be bad enough leaving all of you. I'd have to leave the best teacher I've ever had, too. And she really listens to me, you know, about stuff. Not just art. Other stuff, too. Like you do.

"So, after you finished school, did you have a job?"

"Wanted to teach, and write, I guess." Spike was feeling a little glow of warmth from her words about him listening to her. He hoped he didn't somehow bollock that up too.

"You?"

"Yeah, I was a right wuss. No edge at all, sweets, believe me."

"I just can't see you like that. Booky. Oh, god. Like Giles."

Dawn dissolved into giggles, rolling on the grass while Spike eyed her. The glow dissipated. She was looking tastier by the minute.

"Finished, missy?" he asked in annoyance, as her laughter began to abate. 

"Yeah." Another giggle escaped. "Well, almost."

She calmed, catching her breath, and began brushing a few stray blades of grass from her tiny little top. Sometimes, with a sort of lingering Victorian sensibility, Spike wondered if there was some kind of magical barrier at the entrances to the Summers home that prevented shirts and blouses that actually _concealed_ the body in any way from entering. Like a vamp barrier for loose fitting turtlenecks. Dawn picked a rather stubborn twig off her shorts and rolled over to toss it away, coming face to face with her mother's tombstone.

Horror struck. "Oh. My. God."

Instantly alert, Spike came up to his haunches, body poised, ready to strike. His eyes raced around the area, checking for danger. He'd sensed nothing. Was he slipping that badly?

"What? What is it?" His voice was urgent.

"Oh, god," Dawn sounded distressed beyond words.

He moved to her side, curling his hand around her upper arm in a gesture of comfort and protection, eyes still darting about.

"Bit?"

"It's Mom. I was...I was laughing. Right here. _On her grave_." The last words came out in a horrified whisper.

Spike relaxed.

"Dawn," he began, but she cut him off.

"How could I do that? I must be such a horrible person! Laughing on my own mother's grave. How could I do something so awful?"

She'd never told him about how angry she was at her mother and Buffy for dying and abandoning her. That was truly too awful to talk about. Even Spike, who everyone seemed to think was so evil, wouldn't love her if he knew _that dark secret. This – this was bad enough._

He shifted around, putting himself between her and the headstone. "You didn't do anything bad, luv. Your mum loved to laugh. How many times did I hear the two of you laughing together? Dozens of times. Why, I 'spect she was  laughin' right along with you just now, glad to see her girl having a good time. Even if you were laughin' _at me_," he added, glaring at her.

"But –" Dawn respected Spike's opinion, but this was so bad. Really, really bad. "—on her grave? Right on her grave?"

Spike shrugged. "Sure, why not?" he assured her. He lifted her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes. "You know she's not here, right? 'Spect she's all happy and livin' it up in heaven. Doin' all the things she liked. Cookin' and lookin' at that god awful African art she liked. Watchin' 'Passions' and listenin' to the Beatles and Juice Newton. And bein' able to read an entire book in one sitting. She told me once that was one of her fantasies." His mouth quirked at the memory, and he smiled at Dawn.

Dawn's eyes teared, even as she smiled shakily. "You think?" she asked for reassurance.

"Sure, pet."

"You think Buffy's with her now?"

He hoped so. God, he hoped so. Who knew what that portal had done? Had it thrown his Slayer into some hell dimension, or just allowed her to die, and go on to her reward? Chosen One, right? He reminded himself daily, hourly. Chosen One damn well _better _be enjoying her reward in heaven with her mum.

"Yeah, I do," he tried to instill confidence in his tone. Needed to reassure his girl, didn't he? "C'mere." 

He tugged her back down to the ground so that they were laying side by side again, looking at the stars as they'd been doing earlier.

"Pick a nice bright star, baby," he urged her.

Dawn considered the night sky carefully. "That one," she indicated one of the stars in Orion's belt.

"Good choice," he complimented. "Now, whenever you look at the sky, you can look at that star and think of your mum. She's a lot closer to that star than she is to this slab of marble. And if you laugh, you'll be able to see her winkin' at you."

Hell, could he be more of a poof? Spike thought disparagingly of himself. But Dawn seemed to enjoy the idea. Her head turned toward his on the dampening grass, and she smiled, almost shy now.

"Thank you," she said with quiet sincerity. She took a deep breath. "How about Buffy? Should we choose a star to be Buffy, too?"

_They never, **ever** went to Buffy's grave_. She'd tried to persuade him to take her there a few times, but he ignored her completely when she talked about it, not even acknowledging that sound was coming out of her mouth. So her visits to Buffy's grave were made during the day, alone or with Tara. Once or twice, she'd gone with Xander. She had no idea if Spike had ever even seen the headstone they'd gotten her. But sometimes...sometimes she'd see something that made her think he might be stopping there without her, sometime when he was alone.

Spike didn't reply. He just stared up at the star filled sky in silence.

"Don't you think we should choose one to be Buffy, too?" Dawn pressed.

The silence lengthened. Then Spike swallowed and forced sound to move out of his throat, past the lump of pain. "You choose, luv."

Dawn considered it carefully, then chose the North Star.

"It's strong and bright," she explained her choice. "And it guides." Dawn struggled to keep the tears out of her voice. "It's a good choice for Buffy. Strong."

"Yeah." The word emerged, barely more than a huff of air.

Silence fell between them, and they continued to lay there, side by side, looking up at the dark sky, at the miraculous sweep of the Milky Way, the infinite, unknown worlds it contained. _Other skies. Other worlds. _For a time, their thoughts were their own.

Long minutes later, Spike tried to lighten their introspective moods.

"Someday, bit, when your time comes, you and your mum and your sis will be together again. Probably sharin' big group hugs all the time. Laughin'. Yakkin' up a storm. An' you'll spend your days doin' good deeds. Hero-type stuff."

Dawn turned away from Spike and stared up at the night sky. She didn't want him to see the tears in her eyes, and she ruthlessly blinked them away. He talked about her eventual reunion with her mother and Buffy as if it was an absolute certainly, something he believed in without question.

She knew that vampires, except, of course, for the dark and brooding one, didn't have souls. No Soul = Evil = No Heaven. Even though no one had really laid things out for her quite so bluntly, the whole situation with Angel/Angelus, with Spike, and with demons in general, had definitely led her to believe that was the way things were. 

She wondered how it must feel to Spike to know that a reunion with his family and the people he had loved was something he himself would never, could never, _ever_ have. 

Blinking furiously, _she would not cry_, she stretched out her hand very slowly until it touched his. Then she curled her fingers around his pinky and squeezed. He didn't acknowledge the move, but he didn't pull away either. 

She didn't know if mystical key thingies made by monks had a soul. Spike seemed to think so, but neither of them could really_ know, could they?_

Dawn gripped his finger more tightly. 

She had Spike.

If it turned out she didn't have a soul, maybe she could spend whatever eternity existed for soulless beings with him.

~*~

Spike sat silently on the roof, smoke curling around his head from the burning cigarette he held loosely in his left hand. He'd spent more than 120 years in the dark, and he still loved the sounds of the night. He listened to the calls of the various birds that hunted after dark, the chirping of crickets which he found so soothing. He'd enjoyed the cool, welcoming night air even when he was alive, and that hadn't changed in all these years. Unlike some vampires, he rarely missed the sun. There was always much more to see in the night sky.

Daylight was the not the kind of light he craved.

He heard Dawn shift in her bed, heard her breathing change slightly, and his body tensed as he listened for any sounds of distress. None came, and her breathing evened out again. He relaxed. Perhaps there would be no nightmares tonight, no need to go to her and offer comfort, as he had so often these past weeks.

But he remained in his place, just outside her window. Guarding her, keeping watch, being there. Just in case she needed him.

~*~


	7. Chapter Seven

My apologies for not getting this chapter posted earlier. Apparently someone took objection to the only other fic I had posted here at FF.net, which was called 'Lost in You'. Without any warning or notification, FF.net removed the story from the site, and banned me from posting for several days. 

I'm really very torn about this kind of action. 'Lost in You' was a piece of erotica. It was not obscene. It did not contain any objectionable language or even any or the 'rougher' euphemisms for body parts. I considered it a look at emotions – a glimpse into what Buffy was feeling while making love to Spike, and trying to convey to him through that lovemaking the depth of her feelings for him. It's true that I had originally posted it as NC-17 just to be safe, but felt very comfortable reducing the rating to R when FF.net instigated their censorship policies.

Future chapters of this story, 'Journeys', are going to contain sexual content. As I stated in the summary before chapter one, I had been planning to let any readers following the story here at FF.net know of an alternate site where they could read the chapters that could not, in good conscience, comfortably fit into any rating less than NC-17. This recent development (having 'Lost in You' removed) had made me question that decision. I would appreciate the thoughts of readers, and any suggestions (either in the feedback area, or directly to me at MKStatz@aol.com). Is it acceptable for me to 'post' a chapter as just a link to another site, with an explanation of the reason? I've spent literally months working on this story, and I freely admit I don't have time to re-write alternate PG-13 versions of any 'in doubt' chapters, altering the content, just for FF.net. Would a brief synopsis of the un-posted chapter be acceptable at FF.net? Or should I just dump the idea of posting here at all, and stick to sites that don't censor stories?

I am the mother of four children. They are now adults, but I was protective of what they read and saw as they were growing. I do not believe in putting adult materials into the hands of children. That was why I chose adult ratings for my stories. 

The fictional relationship between Buffy and Spike is complex. And I see them both as very sexual beings who are going to try to work through some of their hang-ups, some of their trust issues, and some of their problems through sexual encounters. I hope that, for the most part, I will keep those encounters tasteful. But I also hope to depict them in keeping with the characters – meaning they are not going to be all candle-light and flowers, and sometimes things are going to get a bit rough. (However, I think I've succeeded in keeping their relationship much less physically violent than it was portrayed on screen in season six.)

I do not own FF.net, and I believe they have the right to make their own decisions about material posted here, even if I do not necessarily agree with those decisions. However, I feel it would be very helpful if they would make it clear just what they feel constitutes 'objectionable' material, and let writers know when and why a story does not meet their unspecified standards.

On to chapter seven. Thanks for reading. Your feedback has been wonderful, and has meant a lot to me.

Mary

Journeys by Mary 

~*~

WE are shaped and fashioned by what we love. 

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

~*~

**Part One – Promise to a Lady**

WHY did I love her? 

Because it was her; because it was me.

– Montaigne

~*~

See notes, etc. preceding Chapter One.

Chapter Seven

How long could he keep this up? Giles wondered. He'd been back there for close to four hours already, and Giles could hear the repeated thwacks to the heavy punching bag. Now rhythmic, steady, now erratic, harder. Fists, elbows, knees, feet. And always back to fists. Hours and hours and hours. Pounding and punching. Sometimes he was cool, icy in his remoteness. Then, suddenly, he would change, attacking with a flurry of vicious heat, death burning in his eyes and in the set of his mouth. But aside from the panting of his breath, he was always silent. Not even a grunt or a groan. Just silent.

It was the fifth day in a row he'd shown up during the day to work out.

If he kept to the pattern he'd set on previous days, he wasn't even half way through his work out. Once he finished trying to destroy the large bag, he would go on to other things. Next he'd be hanging by his knees from a rack he'd placed on the wall, doing inverted sit-ups in numbers too sickeningly high to count. Then he'd move to the weight machine he'd brought in and spend a few hours there. Weight machines like that were expensive. Where had he gotten the money to purchase it? Giles wondered. It wasn't exactly the type of thing he could smuggle out of the shop under his coat, now, was it? 

How long could he keep to this schedule? Days, weeks? Giles wasn't sure how long _he_ could endure listening to the relentless, punishing workouts. He was beginning to regret telling the vampire he was welcome to use the training room whenever he wanted.

Forty-five minutes later, Giles went out to a late lunch just to escape for awhile.

~*~

When he returned an hour later, Spike was still at it. He was on the weight machine now. Perhaps an intervention was in order.

"You look tired, Spike."

Spike ignored him. Over the last few days, they'd met a few times to discuss the dragon and the research on it that was progressing. Spike was all for charging into the cave and taking his chances, but Giles persuaded him to wait for more information, and Spike had reluctantly agreed. Patience had never bee the vampire's strong suit. In fact, Giles was well aware that the blond's _impatience_ had been a great boon to them in the past, allowing them to defeat him, when they may have had less luck if Spike had laid out and stuck to more reasoned plans. 

They'd also talked about several other demon problems. They had shared information, and had taken some steps to take care of threats. So far, those steps had consisted almost entirely of Spike stating, _"I'll go tear their heads off then, shall I?"_ and Giles agreeing to that. But Giles did feel that they were laying the groundwork for a more feasible future working relationship between the vampire and the rest of the group. Giles also had to admit that Spike's knowledge of the demon world was much vaster than he had expected. He'd always thought vampires, for the most part, stuck to their own kind. 

They'd outlined patrolling plans as well; some for Spike alone, and others for the group, who wanted to continue Buffy's work as much as they could. While remaining business-like, the two had started to relax a little in each other's company. 

Giles found this new, quieter, and more serious minded Spike easier to tolerate, and in general, Spike respected the Watcher, but he was still pretty good at shutting him out when he wanted to.

Like now.

"Willow and Tara have told me you spend several hours each night on the roof outside Dawn's room, standing watch. You're here a good part of the day, working out. Are you sleeping at all?"

"Thought I told you once before, Watcher," he said smoothly, not letting up. Press. Slowly lower. Press. Slowly lower. "Sleep is highly overrated."

He tried a different tact. "I'm sure you know yourself best. For myself, I find insomnia affects my work – both my physical and mental agility."

"Your physical agility can be worse than it is now?" Spike snarked, and Giles' mouth twitched in amusement. Two days ago, he'd temporarily lost his mind and offered to aide Spike in his workouts by bracing the heavy punching bag for the vampire. Five minutes into the workout, feeling he'd narrowly escaped serious internal injuries, he'd retracted the offer.

"You slept well enough when you were living with me," Giles reminded him. "I distinctly remember snoring was not unusual." It had only been once, actually. But he _had_ heard snoring. And why would Spike _ever_ snore if he didn't need to breathe? Giles wondered. For that matter, why did he pant when he was punching the bag, and practice correct breathing techniques when he was lifting?

Spike didn't pause, but he glared at Giles. "I do not snore, "he said indignantly, proving that the standard response to an accusation of snoring was not limited to humans. 

"Yes, well, I think I would be a better judge of that than you. You weren't lying awake listening to yourself." Giles could be a bit snarky himself sometimes. "My point is this – I would hate to think your refusal to sleep could in any way affect your ability to properly watch over Dawn when she's in your care."

Spike paused, holding the heavily weighted bar up, then he lowered it slowly, and sat up to stare at the other man.

Bingo! Giles thought, congratulating himself. Apparently Dawn was the key in more ways than one.

Spike looked as though he wanted to say something, but then he hesitated, and Giles was sure that what he did say was something altogether different.

"I'll work on getting more rest then, Watcher."

Giles studied him carefully. He wanted to press the subject further, but, for some reason, found himself unable to.

"Good," he approved. "I think we're ready to go after the dragon," Giles went on, changing the subject entirely, and Spike's eyes betrayed his gratitude for a moment before becoming bland. 

"Scoobies all researched out, are they?" Spike asked, and Giles once again felt the amusement Spike seemed to almost effortlessly raise in him.

"It would seem so," he agreed. "Tara's research suggests that dragons hunt by night, which fits in nicely with the police reports, and that our best time for success would be while it's still sleeping, or just as it wakes. We thought we'd go tomorrow – late afternoon. Will that pose a problem for you?"

"Not at all," Spike assured him, explaining how the tunnels running under the city connected directly to the caves, courtesy of one of Sunnydale's former mayors. 

"Yes, Mayor Wilkins," Giles acknowledged. "Historically, not one of Sunnydale's finest electoral choices."

Spike eyed him. There was a story there, he thought.

"I'll be by, then," the vampire said. "Four o'clock do?"

"Yes, fine."

Spike slipped into his Docs, which he had removed for his workout, and picked up his duster, shrugging into it.

"Got a favor to ask, Watcher," he said. 

Giles wondered vaguely why Spike always called him 'Watcher' now, when he'd been calling him Rupert – one of very few people in the States that did so – almost as long as he'd known him.

He leaned a hip against the pommel horse casually. "What is it?" he asked.

"It's about the bit. About Dawn," Spike clarified.

He hesitated. Giles waited.

"She's worried about having to go live with her father," he said in a bit of a rush. "Sonofabitch hasn't even contacted her since – well, even since Joyce died. Gotta admit, it's naggin' at me – that he could come in and take my girl away."

It had nagged at Giles a bit, too.

"She needs to be here. You lot – you're like her family. Bit's got friends here, teachers that matter to her. I don't want her torn away from that."

He lit another cigarette. Giles wished he'd quit.

"Don't want her hurt," he said, blowing out a stream of smoke. "She's been hurt enough."

"I can only agree with you on that. However, I'm not sure what I can do."

Spike took another long drag of his cigarette. "What if it turns out I'm Joyce's brother?"

Giles' brow went up.

"Lookin' for custody of my niece?"

Giles couldn't help it. He smiled. "I think we'd run into several problems. The first one being Joyce's mother."

"She's alive?" Spike was shocked.

"Yes. And well. Living in Texas."

"What is she doin' there?" Spike demanded. "Why isn't she here with Dawn?"

"That, I don't know. I believe there was a falling out, some years ago."

Spike couldn't keep the anger and disgust from his face. "We are talking about _family_!" he roared in frustration. "Argh! Humans!" Spike slammed out of the training room and into the shop. 

Giles didn't have to follow him to know he descended directly into the tunnels below. He busied himself wiping down the exercise equipment. He couldn't keep the smile from tugging at the corners of his mouth. He was trying to visualize Spike, dressed in a conservative business suit, meeting with lawyers and judges and social workers, trying to gain legal custody of Dawn.

_And what is it that you do, Mr. The Bloody?_

_Kill. Maim. Steal. _

_Anything else?___

_Protect little girls. Worry about them. Make them laugh. Sit outside their windows at night, making sure nothing harms them, and to offer comfort should they have a nightmare. Wonder why their human family seems so completely absent._

It was extremely odd, even puzzling, Giles decided, that he had such total trust in Spike when it came to the care and protection of Dawn. He wondered _why_ it should be, but he couldn't deny that it _was_. 

And he knew with absolute certainly that both Buffy and Joyce had felt exactly the same way.

~*~

"Stay. Please, love, stay here, stay." The groan faded away as Spike sat up suddenly.

Empty. The crypt was always empty. He'd been awake, hadn't he? Hadn't he?

What did it matter? She wasn't here.

She always slipped away.

And he was alone again. 

_He was so alone._

He lay back on his bier, and draped his forearm over his eyes.

_Buffy.___

A few minutes later, he pushed himself up, grabbed his duster, and escaped into the tunnels below.

~*~

Xander couldn't remember ever really being afraid of Spike since the vampire had been chipped. He'd been angry with him, had sometimes hated him, and once in a while, very rarely, had even shared a few moments of male bonding with him. There was no question though, that for the most part, he found the vampire a grating annoyance. But, since Silicon had become their friend, he hadn't been afraid of him.

Until a little while ago.

He knew he'd never seen anything like it. And, with his experiences, that was saying something.

He'd seen Spike fight plenty of times. He'd fought against him and alongside him. And he knew that Spike had a reputation in the vampire world as a vicious killer. Angel had been pretty clear about that. Of course, as it turned out, Angel would know, having been his grandsire and mentor. But until tonight, he wasn't quite sure he'd believed in Spike's reputation.

Well, he did now. Oh yessiree. 

They'd had a plan of sorts. They had hoped to come upon the dragon as it slept. Once they were near enough to it, Willow and Tara would cast a spell to keep it asleep, and Spike could go in for the kill. Dragons could only be killed, Tara believed, by a sword directly into the heart. They knew the sleeping position might be a problem. Willow had spent three days researching ways to make the dragon levitate enough – or at least rearrange its position enough – so that Spike could get a clean thrust to the necessary spot, which, if Tara was correct, would be low, almost between it's front legs.

It had been a good plan. They'd all agreed on that. Even Spike had nodded his approval. It was becoming a major annoyance to Xander that Spike continued to refuse to speak to anyone except Dawn and now Giles. What was the point? He was used to being annoyed by Spike, but still... 

Stupid vampire.

Stupid, _scary_ vampire.

He'd gone wild. There was really no other way to describe it, and wild summed it up pretty well. Completely berserk. Which was an old Norse word for 'wild warrior'. Now, how did he know that? And why now, and not at some useful moment, like when he was flailing about trying to play Trivial Pursuit with Willow? Which, Xander reminded himself, he should never, ever do.

Spike had led the way to the cavern he had explored earlier in the week. They'd waited, about fifty feet down the passageway, as Giles had gone to check the status of the dragon. Willow and Tara were holding hands, chanting quietly as they mentally prepared to cast the needed spells. He'd been checking his weapons; a long silver sword, mate to the one Spike was carrying, and an axe. Spike had seemed a little edgy. He only noticed it because he'd often admired the vampire's calm before battle, while he himself was often feeling shaky and scared. Sometimes, it was a damn bitch being the only one without special powers. The vampire had paced ahead of them a short distance, then returned, several times. Xander had seen him take a long swig out of his silver flask, emptying it. The blond had then stared at his hands, making fists, after replacing the flask in the inside pocket of his duster. 

"You're not planning to get drunk, I hope," Xander had said to him, not even attempting to keep the disgust out of his voice.

Spike ignored him.

God, that was bothering him! He'd much rather put up with the blond's snarky comments than this unending silence. He hated how it made him feel that Spike didn't think he was even important enough to acknowledge.

Giles returned, and with him, bad news.

There were two dragons in the cavern. Thankfully, they both appeared to be deeply asleep, and he filled them all in on their locations in the cavern – curled together – and their body positions. But two dragons was one too many.

Giles and Willow started discussing the strength of the spells she and Tara had been working on, and whether or not they could be safely altered at this point to accommodate the changed circumstances. Giles pressed for caution, while Willow insisted she was strong enough to take care of both of them, with only a few small alterations in the spell. Tara looked alarmed, her eyes fixed on her lover, Xander tried to appear concerned and supportive, and Spike was practically bouncing with nervous energy.

When bickering began to break out between Giles and Willow, Spike went his own way. Xander didn't realize what was happening until he saw Spike charge into the dragon's lair, and by then it was too late.

The others rushed forward to give what assistance they could, but in the end, they did little beyond stare in amazement and a kind of sick fascination. 

Spike was in his element. He seemed invincible, powerful beyond what they had ever seen from him before. He was a blur of movement, incredibly fast, leaping and somersaulting high into the air as he attacked the now awakened dragons with terrifying ferocity.

The first one went down quickly. As soon as it reared back on its hind legs, Spike moved in for the kill, finding the heart unerringly with the first thrust of his sword.

The second one, the male, roared in outrage over the death of its mate, and Spike's eyes gleamed as he let the beast assimilate the situation.

He's enjoying this, Xander thought, and it was true.

The thrill of the fight, the glory of the battle, was rolling off of the vampire in waves. This was what he was. A warrior. This is what he was made for. To fight. To maim. To kill. He gloried in the dance, taking risks and chances no sane person would ever take. And all the while, the wide, tongue wagging grin plastered on his face told them all just how much he loved what he was doing.

And then something odd happened. Spike seemed to freeze, a look of shock on his face, and he stumbled, looking for a moment as though he might actually drop his sword.

It only lasted a few seconds, and he was lucky it happened just after he had delivered a harsh blow to the dragon. If the dragon had not been regaining its feet, it almost certainly would have moved in for the kill at that moment of hesitation.

After that, the grin was gone, and Spike finished the huge beast off in a matter of seconds, his sword striking true when he dashed almost under the belly of the monster. He barely got out from under it before it crashed to the floor of the cave.

Spike stood there, chest heaving. He turned to them, seeing them all standing in the mouth of the large cavern with varying degrees of amazement on their faces. He moved toward them calmly, with that smooth flowing walk of his. They all backed away slightly, in order to give him a wider berth, but Spike stopped when he reached them.

Without a word, he reached for a corner of Willow's sweater, and very casually, he wiped the blade of his sword in its folds, his eyes pinning hers.

No one said a word, and Spike moved off ahead of them, heading back the way they had come.

As they made their way out of the tunnels, Xander kept as much distance between himself and the blond vampire as he could. He had been reminded just now of something he rarely had to be reminded of. But somehow, this event had hammered the point home. Spike was a vampire. He was not human. He was wild and vicious, a killer. Right now, Xander feared him again, and he didn't want to be anywhere near him.

~*~

Spike had cleaned and replaced his weapons by the time Giles came into the training room.

The Watcher leaned against the wall several feet away from the vampire, and proceeded to clean his glasses. Spike eyed him. Five, four, three, two, one...

"Do you think that was the advisable method of attack?" Giles asked calmly.

"Got the job done, dinit?" the blond countered.

Giles replaced his glasses. "Yes, it did. However, I'm more concerned at the moment with exceeding acceptable levels of risk."

Spike rolled his eyes. "I wanted to go in days ago. You lot wanted to wait and plan. So I waited. Your plan wasn't gonna work. Mine did."

"Yes, "Giles agreed again. "Your methods of fighting were really quite extraordinary. I've seen you fight many times, Spike. But never like that. Moreover, your vampire visage never even emerged. Do you have an explanation for that display of power?"

Spike shifted uncomfortably under the Watcher's steady regard.

"Been working out. You've seen me," he offered.

"Hmmm. You must explain vampire physiology to me sometime, Spike. Humans usually need to work out for far more than a week to show such improvement in their physical prowess. Even more so, I should think, if they were reduced to an almost skeletal state only a couple of months ago."

Spike remained silent, and Giles realized the vampire wasn't going to offer him any sort of explanation at all. 

"I see," he murmured. He hesitated, then offered quietly, "Spike, if there's anything you need to talk about..."

Spike's surprise showed. He stared at the Watcher for a moment. "Long as you're askin' Watcher –" 

"Yes?"

"Red."

"What?"

"When I was fightin' the dragons, she almost put the kibosh on it."

"What?" Giles was shocked. "How?"

"Came into my mind. She's strong, too. I think she was trying to give me a surge of power, but it didn't quite work that way. Whatever she did almost made me drop my sword."

"What?" Giles felt like he was losing his ability to say anything else. "I can't believe – Willow would never deliberately try to ..."

"Not sayin' it was deliberate, Watcher," Spike said. "'m jes' sayin' what the result was." 

He watched the play of emotions crossing Giles' face. He'd told the Watcher what happened. Wasn't much more he could do.

"Look, I've gotta go. Promised the bit a movie. _In the theater, with popcorn."_ He smiled slightly, and shrugged his shoulders. His girl had a habit of making specific demands as recompense for being excluded from certain Scoobie activities. Without any further discussion, Spike left. 

He wasn't overly concerned about Willow. Really didn't want the bint popping into his head whenever she felt like it, though. Bit unsettling, that. Made him just a bit edgy.

Normally, he'd just stay out of their little Scoobie relationships, let them deal with their own problems. But, as he'd already acknowledged to himself, his respect for the Watcher had grown over the last few weeks. And he'd felt it was something he should mention. Just so the Watcher was aware.

Perhaps he was a bit more upset over the fact that he'd felt a – well, almost a _responsibility_ – to report the incident to the Watcher. He wasn't part of the soddin' Scoobie gang, and he didn't have a bleedin' responsibility to any of them.

There, he felt a bit better, having gotten_ that nice and clear in his head. _

He went on to pick up Dawn at Harris' apartment where she'd been staying with Anya, wondering what teen drama she was going to force him to take her to.

~*~

"Do you have a minute, Willow?" Giles asked as everyone was preparing to leave the Magic Box.

The redhead smiled. "Sure!" she replied cheerfully, and Giles was reminded of happier times as she followed him to his office.

"How are you?" he asked. Though he saw a lot of Xander and Anya, he saw less of Willow and Tara. After Buffy's loss, Tara had left for a couple of weeks to spend some time with her Cousin Jean in Washington State. The trip had been short, though, because both she and Willow were taking two nights classes at the University. Willow also had a summer job at the University library, and her busy schedule was keeping Giles from seeing much of her, or of Tara either. Willow had offered to drop her summer courses to care for Dawn, but, by bringing Spike into the mix, they had managed to keep that from being necessary. Giles felt he had been out of touch with the girls, and he was concerned with how Willow, in particular, was dealing with her best friend's loss.

"I'm good," Willow told him. "Busy. Work, summer school, you know, same old, same old."

"Tara seems completely recovered from her run in with Glory."

"Yeah," Willow's smile revealed her love for the other girl. "She's doing really well. I don't think there are going to be any lingering problems. I was worried about that. You know, would she be the same, would she have problems that hung on, or nightmares. But she seems just the same as before."

Giles smiled at her almost blissful expression. "I'm glad. And you – you're um, dealing with Buffy's loss alright?"

Her expression changed, growing solemn. "I miss her. It's so hard being there in her house every day. I keep expecting to see her every time I turn around. And when I don't… Yeah, it hurts."

"I feel the same way whenever I walk into the training room. It's so empty without her there." He made a vague movement with his hands. "And having Spike working out in there this last week has felt odd."

Willow looked down at her hands. "The two of you seem to be spending a lot of time together," she observed.

Giles looked mildly surprised. "Oh, not really. It's not like we're chatting while he's lifting weights. Just the occasional passing comment. We did talk about the dragon, and some other demon problems. Oh, and we set up some patrolling plans, too."

"Hey! I have this idea for a series of spells that could keep vampires out of businesses in town. Like the de-invite, only for public places."

"Really?" Giles was interested.

"Yeah," her enthusiasm was clearly evident in her voice. "If we alter the wording a little, and make a few minor substitutions in the ingredients –"

"Do you think that's wise, Willow?" he interrupted. "Magic can be a very tricky thing. And it should be approached with respect and care."

"I'm fairly confident I can do this, Giles."

"I don't mean to discourage you, but you have cut corners occasionally in the past, and the results have sometimes been, er, a bit problematic."

Willow's lips tightened a little, and noting it, Giles relented a little.

"Keep working on it by all means. But let's make sure to test it carefully. I'd like to point out as well, that we don't seem to have a huge problem with vampires invading local businesses and eating the patrons."

"Oh. Well, yeah, not a lot…" Willow's voice trailed off.

"There's something I need to discuss with you," Giles began carefully. "The night of that final battle with Glory, I know you were successful at some mental communication with Spike."

"Yes," Willow was cautious suddenly. "I told him to run up the tower – that I would take care of moving Glory's minions out of the way."

"Injecting your thoughts into someone else's mind is a very impressive power, Willow," he told her, and saw the small smile of pride she allowed herself. "But it's a power that has to be used with great care. That night, you merely used it to communicate with Spike. You must always use extreme caution to be sure it is never used to affect someone's actions, to alter their perceptions, or even to influence decisions they make."

"But if I can mentally persuade a vampire not to kill someone – well, that would be good, wouldn't it?" She sounded so earnest, so hopeful that this developing power could be a tool for good.

"Is that what you were doing today? Trying to discover if you could affect Spike's actions? Was it a test?"

"I – what do you mean?"

"Spike told me he felt you in his mind."

"I – I, no."

"He didn't feel you in his mind?"

"I was just trying to add more power to his arm, make it easier for him to kill the dragon."

"But you saw what happened, didn't you? We all did. He froze. And if it would have happened just a few seconds later, the dragon would have been able to claw him open." Giles studied Willow carefully.

"Wouldn't have killed him," Willow muttered. "He's a vampire."

"Perhaps not," Giles said, inwardly rather appalled at the lack of concern her tone expressed. "But then the dragon probably would have turned its attention to us."

She looked like she hadn't had time to consider that, and Giles was further disturbed.

"Actions have consequences, Willow," he reminded her. "Often they're not easily foreseen. And magic – the consequences can be dangerous beyond any imagining." He sighed. "I just want to caution you to take great care in your magic studies. Every time a component of a spell is altered, even in the smallest way, possible results must be very carefully tested and explored. It's an exact science, in a way, and the same type of testing should be observed as you would use in, say, chemistry. Your powers have grown tremendously over the years, and you were always a wonderful help to Buffy, and to me. I caution you more for your own safety then for anything else." He smiled. "I'm really quite fond of you, you know. I wouldn't want to see anything happen to you."

Willow studied him carefully. "I promise to take care," she assured him. "But I'm also going to continue to study and practice magic. I know I can be even more help in the future."

"Promise me you will use caution."

"Of course I will," she promised. 

But her tone was light, and after she left, Giles had to admit to himself that he didn't really feel she had taken anything he'd said to heart. 

Perhaps she'd just acted on the spur of the moment, not taking time to carefully consider the possible consequences of her actions. He knew Willow was, at heart, a very good person. But even good people can make errors in judgment.

He was glad Spike had mentioned the incident to him. He needed to spend more time with Willow, try to give her a bit more guidance in her magic studies. Since Buffy's loss, he'd been lax in several areas.

~*~

Willow lay awake for a long time after Tara had fallen asleep. 

Every time she patrolled, every time she dusted a vamp or helped Xander dust one, or fought some other sort of demon or monster, she missed Buffy more. Fighting, going into battle, always left her restless and unable to sleep. It didn't matter if they were successful or not. Either way, it just made Buffy's death more real, her absence an ever-growing hole in her life.

Hopefully...

Oh, it was too soon to feel sure of anything.

She could hardly bear to think of how Buffy had died. How they'd all been _right there,_ and they still hadn't been able to prevent it. Going on without her was so hard. And it just seemed to be getting harder every day.

She'd gone to work, gone to her classes, gone through the motions every day, but sometimes it seemed like Buffy was all she thought about. If only...

She had to be able to do _something to fix things. To make things better. If she worked really hard, if she could get the others to follow her lead, maybe she could help prevent any more bad things from happening. They'd all endured enough. Buffy's death had been the last straw, in a way, the breaking point. She just couldn't take any more. She didn't think the others could either._

They'd all lost so much. None of them wanted anything more to happen. If she could just – _just keep things under control – she knew she could stop more horrors from being visited upon them, destroying them all piece by piece._

She just needed to make herself stronger, and persuade the others to follow...

She knew she could protect them, if they'd let her.

Willow frowned. She didn't understand the new relationship that seemed to be springing up between Giles and Spike, and she really didn't think she liked it. She didn't want Spike to be a part of the group. His fighting skills were better than anyone else's, she knew that. But she didn't think he would ever easily look to her for leadership and that could be a problem. He was like a loose cannon – far, far too difficult to control.

~*~****


	8. Chapter Eight

Journeys by Mary 

~*~

WE are shaped and fashioned by what we love. 

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

~*~

****

****

****

**Part One – Promise to a Lady**

WHY did I love her? 

Because it was her; because it was me.

– Montaigne

~*~

****

See notes, etc. preceding Chapter One.

****

**Chapter Eight**

Spike had arrived a little early tonight and Dawn convinced herself that that was a good sign. Since the Scoobies and Spike had killed the dragon a few weeks ago, she thought he seemed to be relaxing just a little, becoming a little more open to the idea of joining in with the others. He hadn't actually _done_ any joining in yet, but sometimes it seemed like he _might_. Soon. Maybe. She hoped. 

He did hang around more. If she wasn't in bed when Willow and Tara got home, he stayed until she was. And she knew he sat outside her bedroom window on the roof almost every night. Maybe _every_ night, she wasn't sure. Keeping watch, he'd told her. Even though it was a little weird, she kinda liked it. It made her feel safe, and protected.

She knew that Spike was working out almost daily in the training room now, and that he and Giles spoke fairly often. Their talks seemed to be private conversations, though, because neither of them would elaborate on them even if she asked. Of course, he still hadn't spoken to anyone else, or even done anything to acknowledge anyone else's existence, but talking to Giles was a start – right?

Dawn sighed. Maybe she was just getting good at deluding herself. She felt a wave of sadness wash over her, when she'd felt optimistic just a moment before, and she wondered when things would ever be easy again.

"Giles wants to talk to you for a minute in the training room," she told Spike.

Spike's head cocked slightly to the side, and he took a step closer to her, lifting her face with a single finger under her chin.

"Everything okay, bit?" he asked.

"Yeah. It's just –" her voice trailed off and her eyes slid away from his blue gaze, but not before he was able to read her expression.

He took a breath. "Yeah," he agreed with what he could see in her eyes, "I know."

She looked back at him. "It'll get better, right?" Please tell me it'll get better, she begged silently, and now it was Spike's eyes that left hers, as his face went blank.

"Someday, pet."

They stood there for a moment, not touching, avoiding each other's eyes, but somehow seeming comforted by each other's presence.

Dawn took a deep breath and forced a smile. 

"I think Giles has some important news. He's asked me three times in the last ten minutes if you were here yet."

"I'd best see what he wants then." Spike touched her chin again. "As soon as I've talked to the Watcher, we'll leave. So, what'll it be? Poker? A movie?"

Her eyes lit up a little. "10 Things I Hate About You?"

"Again?"

"Pleeease," she begged. Heath Ledger was so hot! God, if a guy ever sang to her like that, she'd – well, she'd probably die of embarrassment. But it would still be unbelievably cool.

Spike rolled his eyes, but nodded. Anything that made Dawn laugh was fine with him.

~*~

When he got back to the training room, Giles was nowhere in sight. With some longing, his eyes went to the chess board that had taken up permanent residence on a small table in a corner of the room. He had to acknowledge that the Watcher was a careful but innovative opponent. Not that Giles could beat him. Well, not often, anyway.

Spike wandered about the room, touching various pieces of equipment. He removed a saber from one of the weapon racks and slashed it experimentally a couple of times through the empty air in front of him. A vision of Buffy fighting Angelus back at the mansion just before she'd sent the older vampire to hell flashed through his mind. He accepted the accompanying increase in the pain that was so much a part of him now.

God, she'd been magnificent!

A small sound had him swinging about, and he brought the saber up instinctively, even though he was expecting the Watcher.

He stared, disbelieving. Something hit him hard in the chest, and vaguely he realized it wasn't anything physical. Just for a moment, he was sure his heart had begun to pound in thunderous cadence. The saber clattered to the floor, falling from nerveless fingers.

"Buffy." 

She was standing less than fifteen feet away from him. After a few moments of stunned immobility that seemed to draw out forever, he moved toward her with infinite slowness, afraid that if he moved too quickly she would melt away, a mirage.

"Buffy." His voice conveyed all the awe and wonder written so clearly on his face, the uncomprehending joy.

And then he was there, just in front of her, less than a foot separating them. She hadn't moved or spoken, but her eyes were locked on his, and he was losing himself in their depths. Her eyes. Open. Alive. _Oh god, alive._

_His Slayer was alive._

"Ahhh love, hello."  His left hand hovered, oh so close; then touched her hair, the merest brush of his fingertips.

"Ahhh, love." His hand moved, fingertips stroking over the length of her hair, still barely touching. His right hand came up, and again, there was that hesitation before he touched her, so afraid she would disappear if he moved too fast, believed too deeply.

"Buffy." All his love poured out in the soft utterance of her name, and his roughened fingers curled gently and cupped her cheek.

"Ah – gah –" Spike jerked away from her, crying out in revulsion. He fell backwards, landing in an undignified heap of leather and scrambled in horror away from her, pushing with his heels and hands, desperate to get away.

From her – from _it_. The bot. _Oh god, it was the fucking bot!_

He was making horrible noises in his throat – gagging, gurgling sounds as he lurched to his feet awkwardly and tried to move, to coordinate his feet to walk, to run, _to get him the hell out of there._

His arms curved over his stomach and chest, a useless gesture of protection, and he kept making those awful, gut wrenching sounds as he doubled over. His head turned, and he caught sight of Giles, who was standing just inside the doorway, his mouth hanging open in horror. Spike's mouth twisted in a face tied up in agony, and his wild blue eyes screamed his betrayal at the Watcher, his shock at the ruthless and deliberate cruelty.

Spike stumbled toward the door to the alley, his usual careless grace completely gone. Instead, he appeared to have almost no control over his limbs as he made his way across the room, seeming to arrive at his destination more by luck than purpose. He crashed against the door and it flew open, throwing Spike to the ground outside, where he landed on his knees, vomiting violently.

He could hear voices behind him, could hear yelling and his name being shouted. But it was all just a jumble of angry sound, and he was far beyond trying to sort it out, or even to care.

Stomach empty, he surged back to his feet and started to move, to get away, to run. Away. Away from _them_, away from – _it._

_Run. Run._

He ran, using all his preternatural speed. He'd never run so fast. __

_And it could never be fast enough._

~*~

He reached his crypt only seconds later, but by that time, Spike's emotions were lurching violently about, a maelstrom of pain and anger, of hurt and betrayal and a hopeless, helpless emptiness. He tore out of his duster, tossing it aside. He couldn't do – _this – this mockery of living, this empty existing. He'd been a bloody, fucking fool to think for one moment that he could._

The searing pain and loneliness that tore through his body every bloody minute of every bloody day had taken on greater degrees of intensity, feeding themselves off the encounter with the bot. He could feel screams rising in him, desperate for escape. Scream, just scream. Start and never stop. Scream and scream until someone dusted him just so they no longer had to hear it.

Raging, out of his mind with pain and anger and the ever present, overriding guilt, he morphed into his demon and went on a wild rampage, smashing everything he could lay his hands on. Every item in his crypt fell before him, furniture; statuary; even his telly was crushed to pieces. He smashed and bashed and broke until nothing remained sizable enough to attract his attention, and when that point came, he unleashed his fury on himself, viciously punching his fists into the concrete walls over and over and over as he, at last, felt the screams come. Primal and animalistic, his tormented roars carried out into the night air, echoing eerily around the graveyard and beyond, terrible and haunting to hear.

Finally, a long time later, Spike collapsed to his knees, spent. His head fell forward as he heaved in unnecessary air.

He couldn't do this. He couldn't keep – existing. The only thing holding him in this world was Dawn and it was sure as bleedin' hell she'd be better off without him. Hello, vampire? What in bleedin' hell had ever possessed him to give his word to the Slayer to protect little sis?

Why had Buffy even asked him? Told him she was counting on him? Had she been insane? Completely off her bird?

_He was a fucking demon._

A. Fucking. Demon.

His head came up slowly, jaw tightly clenched as his eyes narrowed. Cold, cruel fury was crashing off of him in waves.

He needed to kill something. Anything. A light appeared behind his eyes as his lips pursed with purpose. He needed to kill. And he knew just who he was gonna go after.

Long tongued little weasel of a demon.

_Doc._

Spike hadn't been able to get a single line on the creature he considered his most hated enemy, but tonight – tonight he would tear the town apart. If Doc was still anywhere to be found in the city limits of Sunnydale, tonight would see an end to his miserable existence. During the last few weeks, as he'd told Giles, Spike had hunted down Glory's remaining minions. With Slayer blood flowing powerfully through him, he had made their last moments agonizing for them, and he had gloried in their fear and terror, had let their blood run like rivers over him in victory. But none of the pain he had subjected them to had elicited any hint of Doc's whereabouts. Other sources had proved equally useless. And Doc had remained elusive.

Spike pushed up to his feet in a smooth, powerful motion. His body was once again under his command.

His mouth twisted in a mockery of humor as he opened the refrigerator. How had it managed to escape his destructive rampage? He reached a horribly mangled hand inside and pulled out the last remaining bag of Buffy's blood. He still didn't know if he'd be able to drink blood not laced with hers, but it made no difference. Fate would always work its' will. He couldn't do a damn thing to control or alter that. The last few years – and more – the last few months, had made _that pretty bleedin' clear to him._

With reckless defiance, he sank his fangs into the bag and drained it.

_Sonofabloodybitch__!_

No kiddie cocktail tonight. This was the hard stuff, straight up.

He staggered under the power, feeling the heady rush shoot down his arms and legs, and up into his brain, racing into every nerve and muscle in his body. Even as he watched, his hands began to heal. The aphrodisiac properties of her blood stormed to his groin as never before, leaving him rock hard and hungry.

Spike put a hand to the wall, leaning on it as he struggled to assimilate the sensations and gain control of himself. God, so much power! He took a fierce pride in the knowledge that the blood of _his_ Slayer was so incredibly strong, so potent. She'd been a bleedin' miracle, his Slayer. Perfect. From the top of her shining head down to the very last corpuscle of her blood. Perfect. 

He flung open the door, hot for the hunt. Once he located Doc, he knew that it would boil down to 'kill or be killed'.

And that was fine by him.

The door banged back against the wall and Spike stopped short, frozen in place by the sight that greeted him.

Had they sent it after him? Was this some kind of soddin' punishment they'd come up with? He was responsible for the Slayer's death – he _knew that. Were her friends now planning to seek revenge by torturing him to death with the most horrible mental pain they could dream up? Couldn't they just bleedin' stake him and provide satisfaction all around?_

_Please?_

The bot smiled at him.

"Spike! You're here!" She breezed past him into the site of mass destruction that had been his home only a fit of rage ago. Spike closed the door and leaned against it as he fixed his eyes on her. Narrowed, dangerous. She turned back to him, oblivious to his mood, and her smile slid into a look of anxious concern.

"Are you okay? You were walking funny when you left the Magic Box. I thought you might be mad at me because I didn't talk to you. I couldn't," she informed him. "Willow hadn't finished connecting everything inside me yet, and my voice didn't work. Then, after you left, she was muttering and trying to finish repairing me, while everyone was yelling a lot. Dawn – she's my sister – we're both very pretty – hit Giles. Giles yelled at Willow. It was all very confusing, and upsetting. So I left."

She walked over to him and reached up to touch his face.

"I was worried about you, and I wanted to see if you were alright." Her hand stroked down his cheek, and her fingers traced the curve of his lips as the concern on her face became laced with affection. "Are you?"

Spike grabbed her, lifting her off her feet as he turned and slammed her against the crypt door. And then he was on her. His hands, his mouth, his entire body, getting as close as he could as quickly as possible. He sank his hands into her hair, holding her head in a vise like grip as his mouth savaged hers. There was nothing gentle or playful in him as there had been before with her – with it. This time there was just need, raw and desperate, taking him over and riding him hard. He grabbed one of her legs, lifted it and wrapped it around him as he positioned himself against her, grinding, thrusting his rock hard shaft against her in an obscene parody of lovemaking.

He came almost immediately. The short, intense orgasm, the first one he'd allowed himself in months, didn't even give him pause. Certainly, it didn't do anything to dampen the need raging in his body.

"Fuck," he muttered against her mouth, still thrusting violently against her. "Again. Now."

Orgasm number two.

He tore his hands out of her hair, and reached under her, grabbing the perfect globes of artificial flesh he found there and hauling her harder against him. He writhed against her responsive body, grinding himself against her, harder, harder. More. Blunt teeth bit hard into her neck.

He came again.

"Spike! Oh, you feel so good." The bot was gasping for unneeded air, just as he was. "I want you. I wanna feel you inside me, right now, deep and hard. Please," her voice had taken on a carefully calibrated desperation. "Please, Spike."

He wanted it too, ached to bury himself in her over and over through what remained of the night, to feel her eager hands and mouth on his body. Buffy's blood was rushing through his veins, and he was still unbelievably hard, still half crazed with the need to come again. And again, and again, and again. He wanted to sate himself with her, to find the kind of release he hadn't had since his Slayer's death had seemed to steal, not sexual desire itself, but the desire to assuage it, from him. The bot was here, _right here_. Willing. Wanting.

_And looking so much like **her**._

Wouldn't be so wrong, would it? To take comfort, find blessed relief, perhaps even some peace in a body that had been built for him, made for him? No one would be hurt. And who would ever know? 

As soon as the desire crystallized, his mind was filled with the memory of Buffy's reaction to the bot, the unaccustomed shame she had made him feel for having had the mechanical substitute for her created. Spike kissed the bot again, desperate to shake off the attack of conscience. Despite his efforts, he knew it was too late. The memories had washed over him, and he knew he wouldn't have sex with the bot again. His fists slammed furiously against the door of the crypt, next to the bot's head, and he released a roar of frustration. Why? He thought as a kind of helpless anger fill him – why do I still care about her opinion of me? She'd gone. Dead. 

He was such a soddin' git.

He'd already gone far too far. Three orgasms in less than five minutes. And not a bloody piece of clothing even disturbed. He could almost see the look of disgust on his Slayer's face.

The anger that had fueled him since he'd left the Magic Box was falling away, leaving only the oh, so familiar emptiness.

_Was this never going to end?_

"I've missed you so much," the bot moaned, her hands crawling up under his shirt, stroking across the hard planes of his stomach. Apparently his fists missing her head by inches and his angry roar hadn't had any effect on _her libido. "Tell me you've missed me too."_

He froze, stilling the robot under his hands, his hoarse, tight voice commanding her to silence. Then he drew her closer, his arms wrapping around her as he buried his face in her neck. He was still achingly hard, but the desire to do anything more about it had weakened, beaten into submission by his dead Slayer's past recriminations.

He just held her in silence for a few moments, trying to bring himself under control. Seeing the bot – so like his Slayer – and hearing her voice again, seemed to have torn something apart inside him. He hadn't thought he could be any more emotionally devastated.

_Wrong again._

When he spoke again, his voice was soft, hushed, and drenched with loneliness, hitching unevenly. "I miss you too, love. Miss you so much." His voice broke. "Miss you...so much."

He tried to stave off the relentless prick of tears he could feel in his eyes as he slid down the bot's body, his face pressed to her, his mouth open and moving over her shoulders, her breasts, sliding over her stomach. He buried her face against her abdomen as he knelt before her, his arms wrapping fiercely around her thighs. A desperate need for warmth, for Buffy's touch, writhed through him, destroying him. He pressed his mouth between her legs, against the heart of her.

Words he would never, ever, utter to, or within the hearing of, any being, living or undead, made their way out of his mouth.

"Please, love. Please… I need you. _Need you_. You were the only light, everything…." He turned his cheek against her and let, finally, the tears come. Soulless sobbing, almost silent, and filled with a world of pain.

Buffy had never been his, but she'd _been there. A presence in his life. And just her presence, the knowledge of her existence had somehow been enough. Their verbal sparring, the satisfaction of knowing he was the thorn in her side, having, toward the end, the chance to watch her back... It had been enough. But now – now, there was nothing, and he didn't think he could continue to exist in a world without her in it._

"Show me." His head tipped back, and the cry came from his heart, going out to whomever or whatever might hear the pleas of a creature like him.  "Show me how to go on without her."

Silence reverberated off the walls of the stark chamber in answer to his heart wrenching cry, an endless echoing nothingness. As ever, fate was mocking him.

Spike's head fell back against the bot in defeat, and he ground his forehead into her abdomen.

_Buffy…please…please…_

He didn't even know please _what. Just…__please._

A moment passed, and the silence was broken.

"Spike?" An anxious pounding came on the crypt door. "Are you there? Let me in, Spike." She sounded like she was crying. "I need to talk to you. Please?"

It was Dawn.

~*~

Spike pushed away from the bot and rose, staring at the door.

Bloody hell.

He couldn't deal with this right now. Couldn't deal with Dawn, with anyone who might be out there with her. He could barely deal with himself. He wasn't in control, wasn't...

_What if he hurt her?_

He dashed at the tears on his face before looking at himself. Even though the power in Buffy's blood had healed his hands, they were still covered in his own blood, dried now. And his jeans were drenched in – other bodily fluids – that Dawn didn't need to know a bleedin' thing about for a good ten years. Maybe longer.

"Spike?"

He looked toward the small chest that held his clothing. 'Course it was gone, smashed to pieces, and most of his clothes were strewn about, some shredded by his demon's claws.

"Spike, please!" She was definitely crying.

There was no help for it. He opened the door.

_"I hate them!"_ she sobbed and fell against him, forcing his arms to close around her. _"I hate every one of them!"_

Spike held her, but, despite all the time he had spent with her in the last several weeks, there still remained a degree of awkwardness for him whenever any but the most casual physical contact with her came into the picture. He was never quite sure where to put his hands, how to touch her. It was different if he was comforting her from a nightmare. Then, the comforting embrace, the soothing hands came naturally. This wasn't so different, was it? Just because she was completely awake and angry rather than scared? He allowed his arms to enfold her, stroking her back gently with his right hand and lifting his left up to stroke it over the length of her beautiful hair. Dawn nestled closer in to him.

How much had she seen, he wondered?

_"They were testing it! Testing it! On you! How could they? They wanted to know if a vampire would be able to tell it wasn't really Buffy. How could they do that to you? Hurt you like that? I hate them! I friggin' hate them!"_

Guess she'd seen enough.

"Bit, listen to me," he began, but Dawn cut him off angrily, alerted by his tone.

"Don't you dare make excuses for them. They had no right to do that to you. No reason. It was hateful and cruel. _God. How could they?"_

She yanked herself out of his arms, fully intending to storm around the crypt in a full blown Dawn Summers tantrum.

"Why would you even think of..." her voice broke off as she looked around. "Oh. My. God. Spike, what happened? Did someone attack you? Are you okay?" Her eyes flew over him, taking in the dried blood, the dark stains on his pants. "You're hurt!"

She moved toward him, but he held out his hands, warding her off.

"I'm fine, luv. Fine," his voice soothed her. "Just let me clean up a bit, change clothes. Okay?"

"You're sure you're okay?"

"Yeah. Right as rain. I promise."

Spike sorted through some of the rubble in the general vicinity of the spot his chest had once occupied and came up with a clean, or relatively clean, pair of jeans and a t-shirt. He dropped down through the hole in the floor and changed. Have to grab a shower somewhere later, he thought. Right now he needed to get Dawn home. He knew the Scoobies would be worried about her, and no matter what the state of his always strained relationship with the soddin' lot of them, he wasn't gonna do anything to bugger up his chances of stayin' close to his girl.

"Can I talk now, Spike?" he heard the bot call out. "Dawn wants to know why I'm here."

"NO!" he ordered frantically. No telling what the bloody bot would say.

He was back upstairs in a flash. Dawn and the bot seemed to be facing off. Dawn's arms were crossed and she had that angry, fed up expression on her face that Spike had seen more than once this summer. It was usually directed at someone not in the room with them at the time – most often her absent father. The bot was smiling her usual cheerful smile. 

Spike went directly to the robot, taking her upper arms in his hands and speaking with calm force. "You will never, ever, tell anyone anything what was said or done here in my crypt tonight. Do you understand me?"

The bot nodded and leaned in to kiss him. His head reared back in rejection and the bot frowned, looking confused.

"Just don't talk at all," he gritted out, and the bot nodded in compliance.

"What happened with the bot, Spike?" Dawn asked, and now that look was directed at him. Any second now, she'd be tappin' her foot.

"Nothin'," he insisted.

"Did you have sex with the robot again, fang boy?" she demanded.

"No!"

Dawn glared. "Did you?"

"No. Dawn, no. I didn't." It wasn't _exactly_ a lie, was it? "It was something else, and I –"

"What?" 

Bleedin' –, sometimes she sounded just like her sister!

"Tell me!"

She was obviously on an emotional roller coaster tonight, and was just looking for another reason to go ballistic.

He stared at her, locking his eyes firmly on hers.

"I put my arms around her – around it," he corrected. "And I cried."

Silence screamed around the crypt.

Dawn didn't think she'd ever been so shocked in her entire life. Well, maybe when she'd found out she was the key. That had been pretty shocking. And when Janice had told her about the existence of, er, blowjobs – and by the way, _major eeeww – that had been another big one. She had seen Spike cry. At the base of the tower on – that night. Just that once. So she knew he _could_ cry. But for him to **_admit_** to _doing it again_... That was almost beyond shock. It went into the whole new realm of mega-shock. _Uber-shock.__

They stared at each other, blue eyes on blue eyes. Then Dawn's eyes flooded with tears again, but this time, they were tears of sympathy, and she tried to blink them away as she moved back into his arms to hug him.

"You smashed up your own crypt when you got back here tonight, didn't you?"

"Yeah, bit, I did," he admitted, his hands stroking over her hair this time without having to think about it first. "Had some steam to let off."

"I didn't see everything that happened at the Magic Box. I just saw you falling out the door. You were hurling again, and I got so scared. Spike, you're not gonna go into another vampire coma thing, are you? 'Cause I know Buffy's blood must be almost gone and I don't have any more, and I don't know what else we could do if we need more, and..." Words were coming out almost too fast to follow, as fear joined her previous anger and pain. "I just can't lose anyone else. I just can't. Promise me you aren't going to die." Her hands clutched the fabric of his t-shirt. "Promise me."

So she was doubly upset. Angry with the Scoobies for using him to test the bot, and scared because she'd seen him heaving his guts out in the alley and was wondering if that would mean what it had meant the last time.

"I'm gonna be just fine, bit," he reassured her. Not for anything would he suggest otherwise.

She calmed a little. "I could always give you some of my blood if you need it. It's Summers blood. Buffy's blood, really..."

"Shhh. Don't say another word," he hushed her, feeling something tighten almost unbearably in his chest as a result of her offer. He'd never take her up on it, of course, but just the same...

"You know it should have been me. I was the one who should have jumped. _I was supposed to jump. It was supposed to be **me**. _How can you still like me, when it's my fault she's dead? How can you even look at me?"

Spike pulled away from her and took her shoulders in his hands, holding her firmly as he put his eyes directly in line with hers.

"We've been over this bit before, Dawn. _No one has ever, will ever, blame you for what happened. Ever."_ He allowed his tone to mellow out. "And how could I _not_ like you? You're my girl, right?"

Her own eyes were very serious as she met his, and he could see the lingering pain and guilt in them. Then Dawn took a deep breath, closed her eyes as she blew it slowly out, and forced a smile as she raised her eyes again to his. It wobbled a bit, but then held.

"Right?" He pushed.

"Right," she confirmed at last.

"Right then. And now I have to get you back home." His eyes flashed her a warning when the mutinous look began to reappear and he knew she was about to protest. "People will be worried, bit."

"Okay. But I still hate them all."

"Can't really fault you there, snack size," he said, lightening the mood considerably. For some reason, that particular nickname usually seemed to elicit giggles from the teen. It didn't tonight, but he could almost feel some of the tension leave her body. He grabbed his coat, told the bot to come along, and they went out into the night, shutting the door firmly on Spike's destroyed home.

~*~****


	9. Chapter Nine

Journeys by Mary 

~*~

WE are shaped and fashioned by what we love. 

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

~*~

**Part One – Promise to a Lady**

WHY did I love her? 

Because it was her; because it was me.

– Montaigne

~*~****

See notes, etc. preceding Chapter One.

****

**Chapter Nine**

The house on Revello Drive was ablaze with lights. Of course the Scoobies would be looking for Dawn. Or they'd bloody well better be, at any rate, Spike thought darkly, wondering a bit at the fact that none of them had shown up at his crypt in search of her. Would'a been the logical place to start, considerin' the circumstances, right? 

Only Tara was inside. When they came in the front door, she closed her eyes in relief at the sight of them, smiled tremulously, and punched in a series of numbers on the phone she was holding cradled in her hand.

"Dawn and Spike just walked in. The bot is with them," she reported briefly and hung up.

"Are you okay, sweetie?" she asked tenderly, as she moved toward them, her hands reaching for Dawn's.

Spike's opinion of the quiet girl went up a notch at the caring he detected in her voice. Willow's bird stuck pretty much to herself. She hadn't ever been very chatty, and Spike didn't really know much about her. Bleedin' rotten family, he remembered, but that was about it.

Dawn was, of course, still angry and upset, but she didn't seem willing to take her feelings out on Tara, at least not too strenuously.

"I'm fine," she said firmly. "I went to Spike's. _Because I care about him and I wanted to make sure he was okay."_

"I know you care about him, Dawn," Tara included Spike in the small smile she gave. "There's nothing wrong with that. But you shouldn't have run off. You know how dangerous Sunnydale can be, especially after dark, and we were worried about you."

"I'm safe with Spike."

"Of course you are, sweetie," Tara acknowledged without hesitation. "He loves you."

Spike and Dawn both looked surprised, but Tara didn't say any more. She had been in terrible shape at the hospital in those awful first hours after Buffy's death. Despite having her mind restored, she had still been in an extremely fragile state. Of course, she hadn't been the only one. Traumatized by the night's events, they had all clung to each other in their grief and need, afraid, perhaps, to separate. The group, except for Xander, who was in another part of the hospital with Anya, had hovered about Dawn, as close as the doctors would allow. And, recognizing their trauma, the doctors had been pretty lenient with the standard rules. 

Tara had sat quietly in a small chair next to Willow, clinging to her lover's hand. And through the hours they'd spent there, she had been mesmerized by the small pool of blood gathering slowly around Spike's feet as he held Dawn's hands, comforting and soothing her through the worst of the visit. He hadn't said a word about himself, hadn't given any indication that he was injured. Instead, he had been a rock of support for Dawn, while blood dripped, dripped, dripped from somewhere on his body and collected around his boots, seemingly unnoticed by anyone but her. Tara knew she would never forget that. It had been one of those rare moments in life that can alter ones' perceptions and perspectives forever.

Willow arrived back at the Summers residence first. She'd been assigned to search the route between the Magic Box and Janice's house, leaving her relatively close to Revello Drive. She looked from Dawn's glowering face to the inscrutable expression Spike had worn for several weeks now, and sighed, looking frazzled, and a bit fed up.

"I'm glad you're safe, Dawnie," she said. "And Spike, I'm sorry. No matter what this whole thing with the bot looked like, Giles and I weren't trying to –" Willow broke off when Dawn's eyes widened in outrage, and she sighed, dropping the topic for the time being. She had so much to do. Important things. Why didn't people understand that? She really didn't have time to be running around looking for Dawn. Couldn't the girl just start growing up? She went to attend to the bot, who was standing silently to one side, observing the scene with a pleasantly attentive expression.

Dawn was tightly wrapped up in righteous indignation and refusing to speak, an attitude that she held to tightly as the remainder of the usual suspects – Giles, Xander and Anya – arrived.  

The last two, who hadn't been at the Magic Box during the 'incident with the bot', as it would come to be referred to, had been delegated to search the most direct route from the magic shop to Spike's crypt, and because they had gotten a later start than the others, Spike supposed that explained their failure to show up before he and Dawn had left the crypt.

Xander looked frantic when he came in the door, his eyes racing around the room until they located Dawn and ascertained that she was uninjured. His sign of relief was clearly audible.

"Your place – it's trashed, man," Xander told Spike. "Have you seen it?"

"Yeah, we've seen it." It was Dawn who replied. "And we're both fine," she went on, answering the unasked question. Then Dawn straightened her shoulders and addressed the group calmly. "I think what you did tonight, testing out the bot on Spike, was one of the meanest things I've ever seen. I just can't believe you would do that to him, after he's..." Dawn's voice cracked and Spike and Tara both moved toward her instinctively, but she held them off with a teary eyed look of determination.

"I told you, Dawn," Willow interrupted. "It had no idea Spike was upstairs. I just sent –"

"Don't lie to me!" Dawn said shrilly, and at her tone, Willow dropped her protest. "I'm so sick of people lying to me!" She tried to force herself to breathe normally. "I don't want to talk about this any more tonight. It's late, I'm pissed at half of you, and I just – I just can't. And just so you all know, Spike is staying here tonight. Like Xander said, his place is trashed and I told him he should stay here." Dawn's eyes pleaded with Spike not to reveal her lie. They hadn't discussed anything of the sort. "I told him he can stay on the sofa, or in the basement, or in Buffy's room. Wherever he wants." She looked around the room, her steely expression touching on each of the occupants in turn. "For as long as he wants. Because he's _my best friend, _and it's _my_ bloody house. Period."

Dawn's stately exit was ruined slightly when she stumbled near the top of the stairs, and they all heard the quiet sob escape her. 

Tara moved to follow her. "I'll make sure she's alright," she told the others, and Willow smiled her approval, letting her hand slide down Tara's arm.

"Thanks, sweetie."

As soon as Tara left the room, all eyes turned to Spike. 

Spike shifted restlessly. His earlier tension had been building up in him again almost since they'd come in the door. The bot had been smiling and staring at him without respite since they'd left his crypt. Every time he caught a glimpse of her, he wanted to scream out his pain. The rage and agony he'd vented so violently at his crypt was starting to press down on him, hard, and he knew he'd better get out of the house – get away from all of them before he exploded. 

He couldn't explode in front of them. _Couldn't._ They'd never let him near Dawn again. 

Giles was the first to break the uncomfortable silence. "Dawn's right. It is late, and we're all tired. I suggest we leave any further discussion until tomorrow. Tonight's events have been – most unfortunate – I must say." Giles ran his hand through his hair, unsure how to proceed. "If you're planning on working out tomorrow at the Magic Box, Spike, perhaps you could give me a few moments. I'd like to speak to you."

Spike stared at the Watcher intently, trying to contain himself. When he spoke, he kept his eyes trained on Giles, even though his words were addressed more specifically to Willow. His left hand was clenching rhythmically.

Clench.

Flex.

Clench.

Flex.

"If you're gonna be usin' the bot for patrolling, I want its' programming changed." His eyes slid away from Giles, from all of them, focusing on some undetermined spot on the wall behind Giles. "I don't want it to – know me."

His jaw was moving now too, clenching and unclenching in time with his fist, as he continued to struggle for control. Xander, however, seemed oblivious to his tension.

"Whoa, who's changing his tune?" Xander asked gleefully. His tone shifted, becoming snidely sarcastic, an inflection he had long ago perfected. "You sure wanted it to know you before – really, _really _well."  

"Grrraah," Spike roared. There was really no other word for it. He roared. And his fist came smashing down onto a small bureau against the wall that was the usual resting place for car keys and the day's mail. It shattered, splintering into irreparable pieces on the floor.

Shock froze all of them in place and kept them silent. They all stared.

Spike's breath was heaving in and out of his open mouth, and his fists were tightly clenched at his sides. He was desperately trying to keep himself from exploding further. But none of them were watching his hands. Their eyes were riveted to his. They were burningly blue, and just for the briefest of moments, before Spike wiped his face free of expression, they all saw the same thing.

A creature in utter torment.

He turned away from them then, suddenly. Instead of leaving the house, as most of them expected, though, he went up the stairs. In the complete silence that was blanketing the room, they all heard Dawn's voice greeting him. He'd gone to check on her.

"Xander, do please attempt to learn some tact," Giles said finally, his voice weary.

Xander was about to say something, when he was stopped by Anya's hand on his arm.

"He talked," she informed them all, and Xander registered the information with surprise.

Spike's request to change the bot's programming was the first time any of them, with the exception of Giles, had heard him speak since he'd left the hospital the day after Buffy's death.

~*~

"People are always lying to me," Dawn told Tara quietly. A lot, but not all, of her anger had drained away, and she just was feeling kind of hurt by the whole incident, and not only for Spike. _He was her friend._ They should respect that. She had a right to pick her own friends, didn't she?

"I know it can seem like that, sweetie," Tara sympathized. "So much was happening this last year, and I guess people wanted to protect you."

"I'm not a kid!"

"But you're not completely grown up yet, either, are you?" 

Dawn looked at her, a little resentful that Tara could always sound so _reasonable._ The teenager ducked her head, and began picking at her bedspread. "Not completely, I guess," she conceded.

"And I don't think Willow _was _lying to you tonight. I think it really _was_ an accident."

Dawn's lips tightened. "It was mean. Really mean."

"B-but not if it wasn't deliberate. Then it was just sort of sad. That it happened that way, and that Spike was hurt." Tara touched the back of the younger girl's hand. Dawn's bedroom was softly lit by the small lamp on the bedside table, and Tara was sitting on the edge of the mattress near her side. "It's important to try not to hurt other people, b-but sometimes it just happens. Kind of like a car accident. It's not always someone's fault."

"Yeah, and sometimes it's pretty on purpose." Dawn said with some bitterness.

"Yes," Tara had to agree. "Willow told me that it was just an accident tonight, though," Tara told her again. "And I believe her, b-because I trust her. Look at me, Dawn," she urged, and Dawn looked up. "It's so important to be able to trust the people you love and who love you. You and Willow have been friends for a long time, and you've always gotten along pretty well, right?"

"Yeah," Dawn had to admit. Willow had treated her less like a kid that most of the others.

"Hasn't she earned the right to be believed, then?"

Dawn's face looked a little mutinous.

"Kind of like Spike is earning my trust," Tara added quietly. "When he had the bot built, I didn't trust him at all. In fact when we thought the bot was Buffy and that she and Spike were, er…" Tara trailed off in embarrassment. She hadn't meant to bring that up. 

"When you thought Buffy was boinking Spike," Dawn filled in the blank for her.

"Um, yeah," Tara admitted. "Then. I didn't trust him, then, or like him at all. But since then, after he let Glory beat him up to protect you… After Buffy died, and this summer… Sometimes it's a gradual thing, learning to trust someone. That's one of the reasons it's important not to break someone's trust. Because it's hard to earn, and can be even harder to re-earn if it's lost."

Tara squeezed Dawn's hand and released it.

"And one of the best things about trust is being able to believe someone when they tell you something, even if the evidence seemed to be stacked against them. So I hope you'll see that you can trust Willow."

"I'll think about it," Dawn conceded. She supposed it _could _have happened the way Willow said.

Tara rose, and snapped off the bedside lamp. "You need to get some sleep."

"Tara?"

Halfway to the door, Tara turned back.

"Yeah?"

"Good mom-type talk," she smiled.

Tara looked pleased and she even preened a little.

"Thanks!" Her soft, comforting tone had changed into amusement.

Dawn hesitated. "Does it ever make you sad?" she asked.

Tara was confused. "What?"

"That you'll never be a mom?" She asked bluntly. Then she seemed to retreat a little, thinking it might be an inappropriate question. "Um, 'cause you know, gay and everything..."

"I can still have a baby, Dawn," Tara said. The subject didn't make her uncomfortable in the least. She thought about it a lot. She wanted children very much. Not yet, but not too far down the road, either.

"Huh?" Dawn was completely confused. "How?"

Tara laughed. "There are ways, sweetie."

"Spike!"

Tara blinked. "Huh?" Where had that come from? _Spike?_

"Came to check up on you," the vampire said from the doorway.

Oh! Tara could feel herself flushing wildly, and she was glad the room was dark. She moved quickly toward him, hoping to find a way to get around him with having to touch him at all. He stepped further into the room, opening up a path for her.

"Night, Tara!" Dawn said. "And thanks."

"Um, n-night Dawnie," Tara muttered, and fled.

~*~

No one had taken the time yet to clean out Buffy's room. Perhaps they just didn't have the heart. Snapshots of her with Willow, or Xander, or of the three friends together, adorned her bulletin board. A few older pictures included the wolf boy and the bitchy bint who was working in L.A. with Angelus now. There was another picture of Buffy in a cheerleading uniform with the rest of the squad, their names squiggled onto the photo with a gold pen; Brynn, Miranda, Chelle, Steph, Ariane, Kimberly. She looked so young… The uniforms weren't from Sunnydale High, he noted. Must be from before she moved here. There were posters, one of which was of some ridiculous boy band, another of Brad Pitt, decorating the walls. _Brad Pitt? And her clothes still hung in the closet. He swallowed. Her scent was heavy in the air._

Spike wasn't sure why he'd come in here. He'd been frankly horrified when Dawn had suggested he stay in Buffy's room. If he had to stay in this house at all, the basement was much more appealing. That's where he'd headed after taking advantage of the miracle of modern plumbing by standing under the pounding spray of the showerhead for a good, long time. He really hadn't wanted to stay here at all. He was still tense and out of sorts, and since his Slayer's death he'd been unable to relax in this house.  Besides, it was night, and he usually got in a few hours of hunting before taking up sentry duty on the roof outside Dawn's bedroom window. He chaffed somewhat at not taking full advantage of the power still surging through his veins from the last bag of his Slayer's blood. But Dawn had gotten kind of teary eyed and all needy-like when he'd stopped up to see her, and he'd let her persuade him to stay. It had been almost like it was a matter of pride for her or somethin'; that he actually stay after she'd announced to the Scoobies that she'd told him he could.

Spike had never had much trouble understanding pride.

He'd settled in quite nicely in the basement, hauling out some long unused camping gear. He arranged it to his satisfaction as he tried without success to picture any of the Summers women in any sort of camping scenario. They'd probably have been willin' to spend the night in their car in the mall parking lot if it meant getting the drop on the other shoppers during a shoe sale, he thought, but other than that...

He frowned. Nope. Couldn't even visualize Joyce crawling out of a tent in the morning, much less the girls.

'Course, once he was laid out, sleep was its usual elusive self. And he blamed the setting and his Slayer's full strength blood for making him even more restless than was usual for him these days. After thirty minutes, he was up again, keyed up, needing to move.

He'd felt drawn here, to Buffy's room, pulled by some force. Actually, he'd felt as though Buffy was calling to him, but that just sounded crazy so he tried to ignore the certainty of the feeling and pretend it wasn't true. All the waking visions he seemed to be having of his Slayer were giving him enough doubts about his sanity. At least he couldn't hear her voice in the waking visions – well, not anything he could make out, anyway, and he didn't need to start. He ignored the fact that he was always desperate to understand what she was saying to him, and never could. He was learning to ignore a lot of things. Gettin' pretty good at it, too, he thought.

Whatever the reason, he was here, in her room. He'd been to the house almost every evening for the last couple of months. Walkin' Dawn home, spendin' time with her. But he'd never come near Buffy's room. Never wanted to. 

Until tonight. 

Maybe he was just a glutton for punishment. 

Spike wandered around the room slowly. He picked up an item here or there, touched it, looked it over, and then carefully replaced it in its original position. Didn't want to disturb anything too much. Might upset someone.

He touched the chain of one of Buffy's fairly large collection of crosses and crucifixes, his brow furrowing slightly as a memory tugged at him. His hand unconsciously moved to the spot on his chest, directly over his unbeating heart, that now carried a cross shaped scar. He had no idea when or how he'd gotten it, but there was something...

_Burn me, burn me, burn me, burn me..._

After a moment, Spike shrugged, and his thoughts moved on. His mind refused to put the pieces of those lost weeks together, and the memory slipped away, remaining elusive, as it always would.

He stepped toward the bed, and glanced at the hardcover copy of 'The Mists of Avalon' sitting on the nightstand, before picking up the framed photo propped up next to it.

~*~

She'd worked on the bot for quite awhile, and was anxious now to get to bed. Altering so much of the robot's basic Spike-centric programming was going to be a challenge, but Willow knew she was more than capable of getting the job done. They were going to need the bot for patrolling purposes, and she would strongly prefer that the bot take orders from her rather than making googily eyes at a vampire. Besides, working on the bot would give her a break from being a total archives grrl with all the research she'd been doing lately.

She smiled to herself. She'd found the last pieces just this afternoon. It was gonna happen. She was wildly excited and almost sick with nerves at the same time. It was so scary, so incredible... She still had to talk the others into it, but she was sure she could persuade them. Tara would probably be the most difficult to bring around to her way of thinking. Tara so often insisted that the natural order of things shouldn't be unnecessarily disturbed. But Willow was sure that eventually, even her lover would cooperate. It would take some time to work out all the details, but before too much longer...

It was very late, and the house had been silent for hours. When she heard a sound – a small thud, like something being knocked over – from Buffy's old room, Willow was startled, and her thoughts flew first to Dawn. The young girl had been so upset, so angry… Willow forced down her annoyance. Even if she did think Dawn needed to do some serious growing up, and that she was spending way too much time with Spike, and with Tara too, for that matter, she still loved the girl. She wanted Dawn to be able to come to her, Willow, with her pain and problems, as she should be doing. Perhaps she should poke her head in and make sure she was okay. Willow moved quietly to the not quite closed door to the room and pushed it open.

The familiarity of the bedroom assailed her, and Willow felt the pain of memory clutch at her. For a moment she wanted nothing more than to slam the door, forcing the memories away. The rare, but oh-so-normal, nights of giggling together, talking about boys, back when she'd still been interested in boys, about school, about life...

Perhaps because her own emotions were hitting her with such force, she almost missed Spike. The vampire sat on the floor to one side of Buffy's bed, one of his arms resting on a drawn up knee. His other hand rested on the back of his down bent head. A framed photo of Buffy and her mother lay nearby – probably the "thud" Willow had heard.

Willow said nothing, taking in Spike's posture and the solitary picture he presented. He lifted his head, and his eyes, dry and unblinking, met hers. For just a moment she felt her own heart wrench painfully as she acknowledged the ravaged agony in the blond's blue eyes, the hopeless despair pouring from them. Then she retreated mentally, forcing her instinctive sympathy away. He was a vampire, she reminded herself. It's not like he could really feel the pain the rest of them were feeling. He probably didn't even _understand true mourning. She straightened her shoulders, physically shoring up the mental gymnastics it had taken her to arrive at that conclusion._

Vampire. 

Not. Like. A. Living. Person.

Hadn't Angel and Giles both strongly suggested that years ago? That without a soul…

Spike looked back down at the floor between his feet. 

"Get out." The words were spoken so quietly that Willow detected them more by the movement of his lips as his head was lowering than by any sound she heard.

She hesitated for a moment, trying to think of something, of anything, she could say, but her sympathy for the blond was so wrapped up in her conflicting emotions about his place in their group, and her fears about the – threat – he might present to her plans, that nothing came to mind. Instead, she flipped off the light, pulled the door closed, and made her way down the hall to her own room, her own bed. And into the comforting warmth of Tara's embrace. 

~*~

Spike placed the photo of Buffy and Joyce back where he'd found it.

Willow had turned off the light and the room was darker now, lit only by moonlight. For a long time, he stood beside the bed, staring at the pale bedding. His hand was trembling when he reached out to pick up a pillow, shaking as he brought it to his face.

Oh god.

_Buffy._

Her scent, even stronger on the fabric than it was in the air of the room, sent a bolt of agony through him.

_Buffy._

What the hell was he doing? he wondered. Why was he doing this to himself? But even as he asked himself the questions, he was kneeling on the bed, stretching out face down on the comforter. He jerked back up, pulled the comforter away and lay down again on the soft sheets, almost feeling her presence surround him.

Just for a minute, he assured himself. Just for a minute.

_Then I'll never come into this room again._

~*~


	10. Chapter Ten

Journeys

by Mary

~*~

WE are shaped and fashioned by what we love. 

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

~*~

Part One – Promise to a Lady

WHY did I love her? 

Because it was her; because it was me.

– Montaigne

~*~

Chapter Ten of 'Journeys: Part One: Promise to a Lady' contains adult material not suited for FF.net. If you're old enough, and would like to read the chapter in its' entirety, it can be found at these sites, either today (11/20) or within a day or two: 

All About Spike:

http://www.allaboutspike.com/fic/203.html

The Crypt:

http://home.att.net/~lubakmetyk/crypt.htm#mary

Or at the page First Rabid made for me off of her fan fiction page:

http://www.geocities.com/rabid1st/mksficpage.html

(You can then click over to Rabid's page and read some of her great fic too.)

And, of course, feedback can still be left at FF.net. (Hint, hint!) All About Spike has a place for posting feedback as well.

If you're following the story (thank you!) and don't care to read the adult material, or are not old enough, a brief synopsis of Chapter Ten follows. Please don't read the synopsis if you plan to read the entire chapter. It's like cheating or something. Geesh!

****

**Chapter Ten Synopsis for Fan Fiction.net**

Spike is in Buffy's room, lying on her bed. DreamVision!Barbie, I mean, Buffy, comes to him.

He can hear her voice clearly in his mind, and can communicate with her mentally as well. She feels very real to him, more so than other visions and dreams he's had of her. Her voice is Buffy's, but slightly different. It was huskier, and had a strange, not quite human quality to it, a whispering darkness. And her scent is different. Cool and sensual, woodsy and wanton.

They more or less spend the entire night making love. Since this isn't real, Spike feels comfortable unleashing all his tenderness. He even lets William out to play for a while. You know, with the poetry and stuff.

Buffy suggests that she is there for him, but our boy assures her he's there for her, too, and some suggestion is made that their lovemaking teaches her things about her capacity for passion that she hadn't yet discovered in life.

Spike feels strongly that this is what it would have been like to make love to Buffy in life, if she had loved him, but also acknowledges to himself that this is something he never would have had, because he feels she never would have returned his love. He pushes that idea away, though, because he isn't a complete wanker. And he enjoys the night with her, even though he's aware it's unreal.

The night ends with this exchange, only slightly edited:

~*~

_ You're wavering. I need you to stay strong. _

It was late, nearing dawn, and he knew she'd be leaving him soon. God, he wanted her to stay. If he'd lost his mind and was existing in some fantasy world, he wanted to stay there, lost in her forever. 

He knew it wouldn't be.

Know I'd do anything for you, love. But most of the time, I'm jes' hangin' by a thread. Don't know how long... 

_ Promise me. Promise me you'll stay strong. Dawn needs you. _

So hard here without you. Jes' – day after day. Mind's playin' tricks on me, too. Can't always tell what's real and what's not. What good am I to you like this? 

_ You're what I need, what **Dawn** needs, and I'm counting on you, to protect her. Promise me. I need you to give me your word. _

Spike squeezed his eyes shut, pain washing over him.

You know you've got it, love. 'Til the end of the world. Gave it once, not gonna take it back. I just – I don't know why you'd want it. If it weren't for me, if I hadn't buggered everything up, you'd still be here. You'd-a never had to jump. What makes you think I can do any better now? 

_ You can't think... Spike, you almost died for Dawn, for me. You _**would have**_ died for us. You put your life on the line, and you think you _**failed**_ us? Failed me? You're wrong. So completely wrong. _

I'm so sorry, love. 

_ There's nothing for you to be sorry about. Nothing. _

Her hands were gliding over him again, soothing him, and her thoughts tried to ease his doubts, his guilt.

(((edited)))

_ You're strong here. _ Her hand stroked over the beautifully muscled length of his arms. _ All that power. _

_ You're strong here. _She laid her hand over his unbeating heart.  _ All that love. _

_ And you're strong here. _ Her hand moved to his head, brushed through his hair. _ Your mind is strong, vital. **You're **strong, Spike. My blood flows in you, will **always** flow in you now. Always. It makes you stronger. And you need to stay strong. I need you. _

Give you anything, love. Do anything. 

_ Sleep now. You need to sleep. You've been wearing yourself out, never allowing yourself to rest. You have to change that, take care of yourself. _

Her mouth moved over his closed eyes, touching the lids in a soft caress. She was leaving, sliding away from him, and as always, he ached for her to stay. To stay. With him.

Please, love, stay. Stay. 

_ Sleep and rest. You need to be strong. Be ready. _

Love you, Buffy, so much. Know you don't feel… 

_ Always so sure you know everything. _ Her thoughts interrupted his own, coming to him on a note of amusement. The dark, husky sound of her thoughts seemed to be becoming a part of the breeze that stirred the curtains at the window. She was leaving him, fading away, and her last thoughts, drawn out slowly, were so quiet in his mind he had to strain to hear them_._

_ Spike… You think you know, what you are, what's to come… You haven't even begun. _

~*~


	11. Chapter Eleven

Journeys

by Mary

~*~

WE are shaped and fashioned by what we love. 

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

~*~

Part One – Promise to a Lady

WHY did I love her? 

Because it was her; because it was me.

– Montaigne

Chapter Eleven of 'Journeys: Part One: Promise to a Lady' contains a few paragraphs od adult material not suited for FF.net. If you're old enough, and would like to read the chapter in its' entirety, it can be found at these sites, either today (11/26) or within a day or two: 

All About Spike:

http://www.allaboutspike.com/fic/203.html  (chapter 11 is up as of this posting)

The Crypt:

http://home.att.net/~lubakmetyk/crypt.htm#mary  (chapter 11 is up as of this posting)

Or at the page First Rabid made for me off of her fan fiction page:

http://www.geocities.com/rabid1st/mksficpage.html  

(You can then click over to Rabid's page and read some of her great fic too.)

And, of course, feedback can still be left at FF.net. (Hint, hint!) All About Spike has a place for posting feedback as well.

Since most of Chapter Eleven fits into an R rating, a slightly edited version follows. Please remember that this fic _is_ rated R, and that an R rating (if going by the American film ratings guidelines) _should_ allow for some mention or discussion of sexual matters, and some adult language. If these things offend you, I suggest you do not read this story. 

Happy Thanksgiving to American readers! And if you're not American, I hope your Thursday is very nice. I'll be thinking of you while I enjoy the day off.  **g**

****

****

****

**Chapter Eleven**

Someone was in the room. Even asleep he could feel the presence, hear the steadily beating heart.

"Buffy?"

Movement ceased for a moment, then resumed.

"Come back to bed, love."  His voice was thick and lazy. Thoroughly sated. And still husky with seductive promise. "Let me hold you awhile longer." A pause; then, "Buffy?"

"It's me, Spike," Dawn's voice was quiet, a note of sadness in it. Did he dream about Buffy a lot? Of being in bed with her? Of course he did, she thought to herself. He probably dreamed about having sex and, er, stuff, with her all the time. Dawn blinked at the sudden prick of tears. "Go back to sleep," she told him. "I just came in to check the windows. I wanted to make sure they were covered."

She took a step closer to the half-asleep vampire.

"Hmmm," the sound rumbled deep in his throat, almost a purr. "Thanks, bit."

"Go back to sleep, fang boy," she said. The hint of a purr in his voice pushed her sadness away a little, and the slight smile curving her lips could be detected in her voice. "I think you need it."

"Yeah, 'k," he agreed without hesitation, voice slurred. "G' night, pet."

Dawn shook her head as she glanced out at the lightening sky. "Right. Night, Spike."  

She covered the last window carefully with a blanket, pinning it firmly in place. No unexpected slips of fabric were going to steal another person she loved from her. 

~*~

It was late afternoon when he finally woke. He rarely managed more than two or three consecutive hours of sleep anymore, often going for several days without getting any at all. The long hours he'd spent today in his Slayer's bed left him feeling – well, bloody amazing. He stretched, lingering over each movement as he extended his arms and legs, flexing various muscle groups before relaxing completely against the soft, girly sheets.

The air in the room was heavy with the delicious, musky aroma of sex.

God, what a fantastic night! He hadn't felt this content, this completely _sated for – hell, he didn't even know how long. Years, anyway. _

((edited: Spike enjoys some memories of the night past))

He let his mind enjoy each image in all its lovely detail before trying to suss out what exactly had happened. Probably a combination of things. The full bag of his Slayer's powerful blood, the anger and rage and pain over the encounters with the bot, and the simple reality of sleeping in Buffy's bed, a place that had figured prominently in his sexual fantasies for several years. Toss them all together in a pot and swirl them about, and apparently you got a pretty bloody unbelievable night of wet dreams.

"Bugger it all."

Wet dreams. 

He was gonna have to do something about the sheets. He _knew_ his body, knew the delicious feeling of total sexual satisfaction making its' lazy rounds through all his limbs right now. He knew he'd gotten off over and over and over during the night. He could just imagine the reactions of any of the housemates to the state the sheets must be in. He'd have to take care of it. Not that he'd admit to it or anything, but since the disaster in Harris' basement, he'd learned how to operate a washing machine. Bloke lived alone, he'd better know how to do for himself, right?

Groaning, Spike rolled out of bed, located his dream-Buffy discarded clothing and dressed, letting his mind replay his favorite moment from the long night. 

((edited: Spike enjoys _another_ memory of the night past, because, you know, he had a _really _good time. This memory includes biting Buffy.))

Spike paused, his hands on the sheets as the memories rushed through him. His body stirred and he looked down at his groin in amazement.

"You must be out of your bleedin' mind," he told his body, and he gave a brief bark of laughter as he started to strip the sheets from the bed. He had almost completed the task when he noticed something – wrong.

They were clean. The sheets. There was nothing on them. He spread them out, examined them. Nothing. No evidence of any kind. Clean. But they smelled like sex, and like something else.

_Cool and sensual, woodsy and wanton._

They smelled like Buffy – the differently scented Buffy who had come to him in the night.

Spike's jaw clenched and his eyes narrowed dangerously.

What the hell was going on?

~*~

Spike was sitting on the stairs, facing the door, when Willow entered the house.

Waiting.

His eyes locked on hers, and the coldness deep in their blue depths caused her to freeze in place. It would never do, she thought nervously, to forget that Spike, chipped or not, could be a very dangerous adversary.

"Got a question for you, Red."

His voice was as cold as his eyes, and Willow shifted uneasily.

"Y-Yeah?"

"Want a straight answer."

"Okay." Willow's chin came up. She hated this feeling of intimidation and resented him for making her feel so – well, like a big old 'fraidy cat. She wasn't. Not anymore.

Not ever again, if she could help it.

"The bot. I know you were working on it last night. What'd you do to it?"

'What do you mean?"

Spike rose from his deceptively casual position and came down the stairs, moving toward her with that smooth predator's tread of his. During their freshman year at UC-Sunnydale, when they were both punch drunk from lack of sleep during finals, Buffy had confessed to Willow that she often, and secretly, found Spike's way of moving 'damned fine'. Willow had dissolved into sleep deprived laughter at the time. But Spike's way of moving looked 'damned threatening' from where she stood right now. And the closer he came to her, the more it approached 'damned terrifying.' 

"Simple question, Will."

He leaned over her as she backed up against the closed door, and placed a hand on either side of her head.

"What. Did. You. Do. To. The. Bot?"

"N-nothing," she stammered, hating herself for the sign of weakness. "Nothing bad. I just started changing some of it's programming. Stuff to do w-with you. Like you wanted. Taking out the p-personal stuff."

"And in this programming change, did you decide to send it to me to test out whether or not you'd gotten the kinks out? See if it still wanted to shag the vamp?"

"N-noo. God, no. I promise." She was genuinely appalled by the suggestion and Spike seemed to hear that in her voice, because he backed away. His hands slid off the door as his menacing aura wavered, though she could still seen the anger burning in his eyes.

"And the bot couldn't possibly have gone anywhere last night after I quit working on it. The power connections were totally broken, and I'm fairly certain no one else in this house could connect them," Willow added for good measure, confidence returning now that he had backed off a bit.

Spike's expression remained coldly furious, and his fist made contact with the door as he brushed past Willow to let himself out. "What the bleedin' hell is happenin'?" he muttered under his breath.

Even without vampiric hearing, Willow caught his words. She looked at the fist sized dent in the wood where his hand had struck the door, then stared after him, her eyes narrowed and worried.

~*~

He'd known it hadn't been the bloody bot. _He'd known it_. 

After all, he and the bot had never gone in much for mental communication, had they? And he didn't think there was much chance of a robot learning to dissolve into thin air while he was holding it in his arms. 

Still, it had been one possible explanation, and he'd –

He'd what? Wanted to know? To know what exactly? That he was losing his mind?_ That _fear had been hovering on the edge of his awareness for several weeks now.

It was easier, and pointed more to the possibility that he retained some sanity if he just viewed the whole night as a dream. So what if he knew it wasn't? Dreams damn well didn't absorb sperm and drift off on the breeze with it.

At least, no dream that he'd even experienced before.

~*~

"I just wanted to assure you that it was not our intent –"

Spike interrupted. "No need to make excuses, Watcher. After all, I did the same thing to you, didn't I? Deserved to get a bit of your own back, I expect."

Spike had stopped punching the heavy sack, and had moved across to his coat as he was speaking. He went through the pockets until he came up with a cigarette. His whole attitude was cool and detached. If Giles had not been witness to the blond's initial reaction to the robot last night and his subsequent reaction upon realizing it wasn't Buffy, he would have been completely taken in.

But Giles had seen those things. He had seen Spike naked, raw, vulnerable beyond anything he would ever have believed possible.

_It hadn't been deliberate. He would never have done something like that to anyone. Much less to a being – _a person _– that had been working with them so tirelessly for quite some time now. Yes, he had been planning to ask Spike to look the bot over – __after he had told him it had been repaired and reactivated. He and Willow had hoped Spike would be able to tell them how convincing the bot would be in fooling other demons._

He guessed they'd gotten the answer to that.

Willow insisted she'd just sent the bot upstairs, and had had no knowledge that Spike was up there. He had no reason to disbelieve her.

Giles tried to keep up with the conversation as his mind raced along other lines.

"What do you mean, you did the same thing – oh," he said, as comprehension dawned. "With Drusilla, and Angel – us..."

"Yeah, had Dru summon up the teacher to torture you with," Spike confirmed, lighting the cigarette. He didn't contribute the fact that his suggestions to Dru had been made in order to keep Angelus from killing the Watcher. He'd been buying time with whatever came to hand in order to save the bleedin' world. "No reason for you to explain your decisions to me. You needed to know if the bot would fool a vamp. Well, it did," He took a long drag off his cigarette. "So, you're plannin' to have the bot start patrollin' then?" His tone made it clear the subject of the previous night was closed.

"Yes," Giles agreed, before asking carefully, "Do you feel you can patrol with it?"

_'No!' Spike's mind screamed._

"Sure, no problem," Spike's voice assured him. He gave a casual shrug and took a seat across from him. "She was built to be a good fighter."

"Of course, her skills will never be able to touch Buffy's, but..." Giles broke off as Spike's face went still.

It was the ultimate guard, Giles realized, that frozen, tight-jawed expression. Had Spike always been so guarded in his expressions, in his words and actions, or was this something new since Buffy's – loss? 

"The robot should be able to help keep things under control," Giles went on. "If we can keep the knowledge of Buf – of the true situation here from getting out to the general demon populace, I feel we can manage to keep any undue problems from arising."

"Yeah, another apocalypse right now might be a bit much," Spike agreed. 

"Quite." 

"Still, normal random acts of violence, nice brawl breakin' out here and there, the newly risen bein' their usual idiotic selves – I should be able to take care of most of that. With the bot's help, be a piece of cake."

He studied the glowing end of his cigarette for a moment, then took another drag.

"So – another slayer get all chosen yet? 'Spose the Council sends up a puff of white smoke or somethin' when they've picked their girl?" Spike asked, exhaling his own smoke off to the side, away from the Watcher's face.

He'd avoided asking the Watcher about a new slayer in the other talks they'd had. Giles hadn't brought it up, and just the thought of it aroused such anguish in Spike that he'd simply left the subject untouched. But he was beginning to wonder why she wasn't here yet, and if the Watcher felt the need to activate the bot again – well, he wondered if something wasn't up. Something not of the good, as Dawn would say.

"There won't be another slayer." Giles' troubled expression conveyed his real worry about the situation.

Spike's eyes narrowed. "Why not?"

Giles explained about the imprisoned Faith, and the fact that as long as she lived another slayer would not be called.

"Bit of a snafu, that," Spike commented. His mind was whirling with the implications.

"Indeed," Giles agreed. "I've contacted the Council. I hope there's something that can be done to circumvent the traditional methods of calling a slayer."

Spike's mind was spiraling into other areas now as he tried to suss out what all this meant for him and for Dawn.

"Heard anything from any of Dawn's family yet? Her old man check in?" he asked bluntly.

Giles started a bit, a little surprised by the change of subject.

"No, nothing. Nor from any of the other relatives," he added, correctly anticipating Spike's next question. 

"The bit's worried about what's gonna happen. Doesn't wanna live with her wanker of a father in L.A., or wherever it is he lives now. I thought she'd be better off here, in familiar territory, so to speak. But maybe it would be better if she went to him."

Giles didn't hide his surprise. Spike seemed so devoted to Dawn. Was he tiring of spending time with the girl? He eyed Spike speculatively, and Spike answered the unasked questions.

"Way I got it figured, no slayer means life around the Hellmouth could get pretty dicey. Might not be the best place for the bit to finish growin' up. And with no slayer about to ride to the rescue, I'll probably be needed here. So..." he sounded reluctant, disturbed. He looked down at the floor, his expression hidden. "Maybe Dawn's better off in L.A., even if she hates her old man right now. Lotsa kids hate their parents, right?" He was almost talking to himself. "They get by. An' I could visit regular like. Keep an eye on her. Make sure she's safe. Keep my word." He looked up at Giles, met his eyes, and held them. "Maybe you could go to L.A. too. Get a place close to her. You're a Watcher. Haven't g – haven't got a slayer to watch right now. Maybe you could watch out for the bit."

"Spike –" Giles was completely taken aback by the turn in the conversation.

"I'd still be keepin' my word, right?" Was he seeking reassurance from Giles or just trying to reassure himself? "Could go with her myself. But we both know I'm your best bet here. Take over some of the duties. Kill things. I'm good at that. Killing. Wa – watching things die."

Spike stood, restless, and turned slightly so that Giles could only see his profile.

"Your word." Giles repeated. Spike had mentioned that more than once. "Did you make a promise of some kind to Joyce before she died?" Giles knew Joyce had always been extremely fond of Spike. He'd often wondered at it and had even cautioned Buffy's mother occasionally about it, but Joyce had just smiled and told him not to worry. Spike would never hurt her girls. She'd seemed as sure of it as she would have been if it had been engraved on a stone tablet and brought down to her from a mountaintop. Once her brain tumor was diagnosed, she'd seemed even more trusting of the blond vampire. She'd still hated Angel, though, so Giles knew she retained some rationality on the subject of the undead.

Spike was pacing now, smoke arcing from the cigarette as his hands moved expressively.

"No. That night. Before the tower. When we were... We were getting the weapons. We knew. Knew we weren't all going to... I thought it would be me. Wanted it to be me. Go out in a blaze of glory. Best way for a warrior, right? And woulda been best for me. Sodding chip in my head messes with me all the time. Thought I'd changed some, but she'da never believed it wasn't just the chip. So I was never gonna have her, ya know. And I knew it. Knew I'd never have her. Wanted it to be me. Help out once. Maybe someday, sometime, she'd look back and think maybe that one time, I'd done okay, ya know? But I gave her my word. She asked me t' look out for the bit, anything happened. So I said I would. 'Til the end of the world. Gave her my word." He repeated and Giles wondered if he was even really aware of his presence anymore. "She haunts me, didja know? Comes to me all the time. In my dreams… Yeah, you'd expect that. Bloke dreams of the bird he loved, right? 's only natural. Snoggin' and shaggin'. Everything all sex and blood. But she comes when I'm awake too. Tryin' to tell me somethin'. Tryin' to make me hear. An' I never can. Never could, anyway. Not 'til last night. Askin' me again to watch out for the bit. To be ready. Stay strong, she says. Strong. Like I could ever be strong _enough_. Let her die, didn't I? Laid right there, helpless on the ground, an' couldn't do a _fucking thing_ but watch her die. An' then she's tellin' me I think I know what I am, what's to come, but I haven't even begun. What the bleedin' hell does that mean? Does she want me to stay here, help with the slayin'? But if no new slayer is comin' to take charge of the soddin' Hellmouth, how can I do all that an' watch out for the bit too?"

Giles was almost frozen with shock. What had the vampire just said? Was he having _visions?_ And if he wasn't, how could he possibly know those words? _Those particular words?_ Dear Lord, the possibilities that had suddenly been laid out before him were rife with implications he couldn't even begin to guess at.

"What did she say to you?" he asked for a repeat of the words with quiet deliberation. This was important.

"Told you. She asked me to watch out for the bit. To stay strong. Be ready."

"No, the other bit," Giles prompted, leaning toward the vampire. "The bit about knowing what you are."

"She said –" Spike began, and Giles interrupted.

"Her exact words."

Spike seemed to come back to himself a little, and he turned to face Giles squarely. His eyes revealed his curiosity at Giles' intent posture and expression, but he provided the information without questioning him. "She said, '_Spike… You think you know, what you are, what's to come… You haven't even begun.'"_

Giles sat back in his seat. He removed his glasses, put the earpiece to his pursed lips and stared at the vampire, speechless.

~*~


	12. Chapter Twelve

Journeys

by Mary

~*~

WE are shaped and fashioned by what we love. 

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

~*~

Part One – Promise to a Lady

WHY did I love her? 

Because it was her; because it was me.

– Montaigne

See notes, etc. preceding Chapter One.

**Chapter Twelve**

Tuck kept a wary eye on him.

He'd been sitting there for a good three hours now. He'd come in shortly after dusk, a time Tuck found he often had a minor wave of vamps drop in. Most of them had a drink or two, tried to pick a fight if they were in the mood, and left again, presumably to hunt. Not many of them hung out. The second wave showed up closer to closing time, after they'd fed. That crowd tended to be a bit more unpredictable. His bouncer, who didn't start until 11:00, could usually manage an unruly crowd. It was the type of work Fyarl demons were best suited to, if you could train them not to just crush everyone who came in. They worked cheap, too.

He'd owned this bar for five years now, and Tuck figured the guy must be relatively new to Sunnydale, because he hadn't seen him in here before. Of course that didn't always mean anything. He could sense that the blond was older, a master, he'd guess, and they sometimes tended to keep more to themselves than their younger counterparts. Younger vamps didn't exude the same power and mystique as the masters. And they rarely had that seemingly effortless swagger. Instead, they were better known for mouthing off to other demons. This guy stayed to himself. He'd ordered a beer, and a pint of human blood. Picky about it too. Fresh, A-Negative, he'd stipulated, in his British accent, and warmed to the right temperature. Tuck had long ago learned just how many seconds it took to warm a pint to 98.6 degrees Fahrenheit in the little microwave behind the bar. 

The bartender didn't know why he'd been so insistent. The beer was long gone, but as near as he could tell, the blond hadn't touched the blood. He'd wrapped his hands around the mug, and stared at it; he'd leaned back in his chair and stared at it; he'd even pushed the mug around a little and stared at it. But Tuck hadn't seen him raise the mug to his mouth yet, and it still looked full. He'd made it a point, after the first hour, to pass by his table every fifteen minutes or so and check.

The crowd was starting to grow, and the vampire looked up, seeming to suddenly notice the increased noise level. With a frown of annoyance, he lifted the mug to his lips and quickly drained it. He set the mug down, grimacing, and pushed back a little from the table, his hands clutching the edge of the wood, hard. He lowered his head between his rigidly straight arms, effectively hiding his expression. Tuck could see, though, that he seemed to be breathing hard, almost gasping for air. Odd. The vampire stayed in that position for a good five minutes. Some of the patrons were getting annoyed by Tuck's absorption with what was going on at that dark table near the side exit, but when one of the customers got a little mouthy, Tuck silenced him with a baseball bat to the head. He was rarely truly intrigued by a customer, and the rest of the crowd could damn well shut up and sit still until he felt like serving them. After all, it was _his_ blasted bar, wasn't it?

Eventually, the vampire straightened up in his chair. His face was coldly expressionless, and his eyes were staring straight ahead. Tuck couldn't tell what, if anything, he was focused on.

The bellow made him jump. The blond had been so silent and contained since he'd come in that the almost deafening roar shocked him. He couldn't tell if it had been caused by rage, or pain, or annoyance at the cold blood, for that matter. If it was that last, though, Tuck hoped the vampire realized that it was his own fault the blood had cooled. Hell, it could have been a roar of joy. With vampires, the difference between rage and joy could be subtle, and not always easy to discern. But it didn't look like happiness that had the butt of the blond's fists slamming down onto the table, which cooperated by breaking cleanly in half under the force of the blow.

Tuck's grip on the baseball bat tightened, and he stole a glance at Haufgle, his Fyarl bouncer who had just recently come on duty. Haufgle rose, preparing to step into any fray that might break out. 

The vampire stood, straightening his shoulders. He wasn't in game face, but the coldly threatening look on his sculpted features, and the grim set of his mouth, was frightening enough. Patrons made way as he glided through the crowd. He threw a ten dollar tip on the bar, nodded to Tuck, and killed three demons in less than fifteen seconds as he left the bar, barely even breaking stride. 

Including Haufgle, damn it.

As Tuck watched him go he heard the murmured name drifting through the crowd. 

_Spike._

Tuck's eyebrows rose. He'd heard of him. Fairly often. There were a lot of rumors about Spike. So many, in fact, that Tuck had sometimes wondered if the vampire himself actually even existed. Apparently he did, Tuck acknowledged, if that had been him. Still, he figured most of the stories that seemed to center around the British vampire were probably myths. Urban legends of a sort. After all, the idea of a vampire working alongside a slayer was pretty far-fetched. And, of course, it couldn't be any ordinary vampire, could it? Oh, no. It had to be a master from the oh-so-mysterious line of Aurelius, just to make the story a better tell. 

Tuck had always been pretty firm in his belief that the whole Order of Aurelius _was nothing but myth. _The select, the elite, the chosen. _What a load of bull. Sounded like delusions of grandeur to him. Of course, whoever was talking about the mysterious line didn't seem to have any idea of _what_ they were supposedly 'selected' or 'chosen' _for_, and the talker never actually claimed to _be_ Aurelian himself. He'd never met a vamp who did. Which didn't sit well with his delusions of grandeur idea, but lent considerable weight to his myth theory. _

But whatever the truth, it was certain that_ this vampire – whatever his lineage – was a popular subject for discussion in his bar. Last winter, and into the spring, he was spoken of with hatred and contempt, but as the summer progressed, that tone had changed, and Tuck knew the blond was now feared almost as much as he was hated. There was also a growing and rather grudging respect for his ferocity among some of Tuck's regulars, especially the oldest demons. That didn't surprise him. In the demon world, fear usually begat respect, even admiration of a sort._

Even though he'd found him rather interesting, Tuck fervently hoped the blond didn't come into his bar again. Killing customers like that could be bad for business. Tuck looked at the two dead bodies and the pile of dust littering the floor, and sighed. Finding another unemployed Fyarl that had the intelligence to be trained as a bouncer was going to be damned difficult. 

Some nights it hardly paid to open for business.

But a few minutes later, trying to keep up with the heavy orders and hearing the excited murmurs that continued to run through the crowd, Tuck was forced to reconsider. 

Death, it seemed, could be a downright boon to business.

He was busy all night, staying open long after the legal closing time to take advantage of the heavy drinking and the rampant gossiping. It was interesting to see the birth of a new urban legend, see how the story changed, how the demon kill count became higher, and the blond vampire wilder and faster, as the night progressed.

Right kind of slaughter, intriguing slaughterer… Turned out it lent the place a little mystique.

~*~

It wasn't that often that someone knocked on his door, and he supposed that was why it always seemed to catch him by surprise.

He was tired. Since he'd spilled his guts to the Watcher like some bleedin' wanker two days ago, he was back to sleeplessness. Not that he'd been off it for long, but he'd had that one nice long lazy day in his Slayer's bed. The memory hit him hard, sending a violent rush of pain and pleasure through him.

He ruthlessly shoved the memories away and swung the door open.

He should have known.

Brooms, bucket, scrub brush, garbage bags. Dawn was armed to the teeth. He tried to stare her down, and was met with Summers Stubborn Look #4, _eyebrows slightly higher than either #5 or #6._

Failure.

"The others aren't coming are they?" There was no other way to categorize his tone. Spike was whining. "'Cause I don't want any of them touching my things."

"What things? Dawn asked derisively, as she swept into the crypt and deposited her load. "You smashed everything you own to pieces."

Had to admit, she had him there.

"And no, Xander and Anya have some other stuff to do." Dawn didn't know what they were up to, but they sure seemed to whisper and grin at each other a lot, heads bent close together. Even more than usual. It was kinda gross. "Willow and Tara can't help 'til tomorrow, if we still need them, and Giles might stop in, but he was waiting on some phone calls, so he couldn't promise anything. Mostly," she went on, "I think it's just you and me."

That was a bleedin' relief.

"Well, let's get to it then, shall we?" his voice was grudging as he admitted defeat gracelessly, and accepted the big push broom Dawn thrust into his hands.

It didn't take as long as Dawn had thought it might. Since so little was salvageable, it was simply a matter of sweeping, dumping debris into garbage bags, and repeating until the floor was something that could be safely walked across again.

When they'd scrubbed up the spots that needed it, and swept down all the cobwebs over Spike's objections that they lent the crypt 'atmosphere', Dawn stood in the middle of the large room, looking about her with thoughtful eyes. Spike, though not human, and having never been subjected to a female's nesting/remodeling instinct, which had been completely lacking in Dru, nevertheless felt some deep seated male fear stir within him, causing an odd panic to flare up at the look in Dawn's eyes.

"We need to fix this place up," she stated baldly, and the panic almost ignited into flames.

"What?" he hedged. "I don't need much."

"You don't _have _anything_," she reminded him. "And we can't _do_ much, 'cause of the whole no money thing, but geesh, we should be able to make it a little more livable." Her eyes ran around the room again. "You can have the television from my Mom's bedroom. I already told Willow and Tara I was going to give it to you. It's got a built in VCR, too."_

"Thanks, bit." He'd take the telly. Bloke couldn't miss his shows, now, could he? "But I'm not that interested in where I live, so we don't need to –"

"Oh, pleeease," she interrupted. "Look at this place. If you didn't care about where you lived, you'd be living in some creepy warehouse, or in a cave like The Master. Instead, you pick this place – flowering vines covering the walls and roof outside, these great windows. It's _such _a total giveaway. You picked this crypt 'cause it appeals to something in you."

Had he? He glanced around. The windows really were rather visually pleasing, and maybe the ancient wisteria vine covering the outside walls reminded him a bit of England. But all in all, it was just a place to sleep, on the rare occasions he did, and store blood.

Speaking of which…

"Bit – been meaning to tell you, since I know you fret about it. I've been drinkin' regular blood – plain, before you ask. And – no problems."

She looked so happy, so_ relieved, that he felt that funny little tug in his chest that he seemed to feel more and more often around her. He put a hand to his chest unconsciously, rubbing at the scar over his heart._

Dawn came over to him and hugged him. He supposed he could get used to that too, if he had to.

"Is Buffy's blood all gone?" she asked quietly.

"Yeah." He moved out of her arms and away from her. He had no intention of admitting how painful that loss was to him. Another little death. The absence of her powerful blood in his mouth, in his throat and body, was like losing another part of her. And knowing he would never have that again was another agony. For a minute his whole being was wracked with a terrible, mind-numbing pain. 

_Buffy._

_My blood flows in you, will always flow in you now. Always.___

_Don't think about her, about Buffy. Don't think about her scent, the feel of her body. Don't think about her voice whispering in your mind, her hands stroking over you, the pleasure in her eyes._

_How deeply she could moan. _

_It wasn't real. It hadn't really happened. It was jes' some kind of vision or somethin'._

_So don't think about it._

_Think about Dawn. _

_Dawn._

_She's what's important. She's all there is, the only thing that matters._

His lifted his head, forcing himself to talk to her. _Keep going. Just talk, make noise, keep going._ "So, what're your ideas for the place?" he asked. His need to distract himself was growing, and his hands clenched as he struggled to gain control before he began to slam his fists into the crypt walls. _Again._

Dawn studied him for a moment, glancing at his hands. She knew he didn't think so, knew he thought he was hiding his pain so well, but he was becoming more and more transparent to her as the weeks passed. Sometimes she wondered if the others could read him as easily as she could. She wasn't stupid. Vampire – blood. Spike – Buffy's blood. She wondered if he was going through withdrawal, like an alcoholic. Or a drug addict.

"Are you okay?" She didn't have to let him try to hide_ everything, did she?_

He met her eyes steadily. "'m fine," he assured her, his voice calm. "So – telly. What do you think? Nice comfy chairs, a sofa, earth tones?"

Even though she could see that his fists were still clenched, Dawn followed his lead. She pushed down her concern and arranged a smile on her face. _Just distract him. Give him other things to think about. Things that aren't Buffy, or her blood, or…_

"Mostly I'm thinking we check out moving week at UC-Sunnydale. There'll be lots of unwanted furniture left at the curbs when the students move out of their summer housing and into their new places." Dawn made sure her voice held a sufficient amount of animation. "Then – garage sales. Dump – last. I know it's traditionally your favorite home furnishing shopping center, but we can try to move up in the world a little, don't you think?"

Spike judged the anticipation on Dawn's face, and made a decision. Why not? Bit wanted to fix the place up, he could do his part.

"We might be able to do a bit better than curbside at UC-Sunnydale, pet. But we're gonna need a truck."

~*~

Oh. My. God. They'd stolen a truck. Grand Theft Auto. She was sooo gonna go to jail. 'Course she'd have to be caught first, and Spike would never let that happen.

This was sooo cool!

Dawn was literally bouncing in her seat. Her eyes darted from Spike, who was driving with his usual blatant disregard for traffic laws, to the expanse of road behind them. She was watching for the flashing lights of a squad car, which she expected to see at any moment. Then she tried to look cool and nonchalant for a few seconds, which she never came close to pulling off. Back to bouncing.

Janice and Lisa were just gonna _die._

"Get your seatbelt on, luv, and quit bouncin' all over the place."

"Will you teach me how to hotwire a car?" she practically begged, fishing for the safety belt and fastening it.

"Sure. You got the hands for it, bit. Can tell by how you play cards. Be a snap for you to pick up."

"This is sooo cool." She gushed, finally saying out loud the words that had been repeating non-stop in her mind for the past fifteen minutes. " Where are we going?"

"Thought we'd check out the mansion. There was some nice stuff there when we lived there."

"The mansion? You mean Angel's place?"

"Yeah."

"Are we gonna rob it?" she squeaked.

Her eyes were huge, and Spike grinned.

"'Course, we are, bit – er, no." Suddenly he was frowning, attempting to backpedal. Robbery was _wrong, wasn't it? Oh bugger it. He supposed stealing a truck wasn't very high on the list of approved things to do with his Slayer's kid sis, either. Bleedin' laws and rules of society were a damned nuisance. Not to mention there were so blasted _many_ of them. Then he shrugged. Bloke couldn't _really_ be expected to keep them all straight now, could he?_

"Bitter?" Dawn smirked, in one of those cooler moments. "If that's a new nickname, I don't like it."

"'s not really robbery, pet," Spike tried. "Some of the stuff in that house 's mine, and some's Dru's." They'd both lived there, too, hadn't they? Should give them _some_ claim. Like squatter's rights, in a way. "We can leave Angel's stuff alone, if it makes you feel better."

"Are you nuts? I can't stand Angel. I say – it's there, it's ours."

"That's my girl." Spike perked back up and smiled at her, nodding in approval. And, when they were done with it, they could park the truck back in the same spot they'd nicked it from. Wouldn't need it anymore, anyway.

There – see? It would all come right in the end.

~*~

He had to admit, the place looked pretty nice. Posh, even.

It had taken them a few days. The hours that were dark enough for him and early enough for Dawn were pretty limited after all, and hauling loads out of the mansion, driving, then unloading their take at the crypt was time consuming. But they had done it. Dawn's enthusiasm for the project hadn't waned, and he was pleased that, as it turned out, his girl had a pretty good eye.

Angelus had always liked his creature comforts and for once Spike wasn't annoyed as hell by it. Well, strictly speaking, he didn't go much for that living underground to pay homage to The Old Ones drivel that the Master had blithered on about on the few occasions Spike had been forced into his presence for some brief period of time. The desire to live above ground was one of the few things he was grateful to Angelus and Darla for. He liked the world, after all. Why would he want to bury himself beneath it in caves with a bunch of bleedin' moronic minions? He'd had a lot less patience for Darla's desire to stay in all the best hotels in Europe as the four of them cut a swathe across the continent. Could be damned inconvenient havin' to deal with all those windows.

The bed had been the biggest challenge. First off, they had to find one in the mansion they both liked. Then it had to be one Angelus hadn't shagged Dru in, an' it couldn't be one _he'd_ laid awake in _listening_ to Angelus shagging Dru. It was a good thing it was a mansion, and had lots of beds to choose from. Handy, that. It was also a lucky thing that vampires had superior strength, 'cause the thing was bugger all to dismantle, lift and carry. Heavy as hell. And he didn't even wanna think about getting it into the lower level of the crypt, or the words that had turned the air a bright blue while he was doing it. 

Mostly Dawn held doors open for him while he toted and cursed, her blue eyes wide at some of the words she'd never heard before.

It was a bit of all right though. They'd actually gone out and purchased bedding. Not that all the money had been come by in a strictly honest fashion, mind you, but still... After stealin' the truck and the furniture, he thought he'd better not push things any further with Dawn. She might inadvertently tell someone. He knew she gossiped a bit with Anya. He figured it paid to try to keep some things above board, leastways if the Watcher might find out about it. Not to mention, Marshall Field's had a better security system than the little market where he nicked most of his cigarettes and booze. 

He'd wanted black. Dawn had pushed for blue, holding a sheet up to his face. He'd jerked his head away. Who the hell chose bedding to match their eyes? he'd wondered in disgust. They'd compromised on deep reds shot with black and gold. He'd even given in on the throw pillows, which had resulted in Dawn doing some sort of little jig in the aisle of the store.

His girl was happy. 

Dawn had nicked some nice statuary from different rooms in the mansion, and they'd had a good time choosing which of the many rugs they liked best, and which ones should go where in the crypt. Lit by the flickering light from dozen of candles, and by the glow from the telly, where Rick was telling Ilsa that they'd always have Paris, the place was almost cozy.

'Course, he'd drawn the line at plants, standing firm, and Dawn had reluctantly conceded the point. Besides, the wisteria vines weren't going anywhere, were they?

They were seated on a nicely squishy leather sofa in front of the telly. His girl was sound asleep. He'd already used the cell phone the Watcher had insisted on getting for him to let Willow and Tara know that Dawn was asleep and would be staying the night with him. Although she's only stayed once before, that time at the request of Tara, Dawn didn't seem to mind staying in the crypt. Spike had suspected the woman had wanted a night alone with her lover. His lips twisted in momentary amusement. Sitting on the roof of the Summers home every night, and blessed with vampiric hearing, he had a pretty good idea of the passion in _that_ relationship. Some of the accompanying visual images his brain had come up with were damned nice, too.

Dawn lay against him, curled under his protective arm. Her head rested against his chest, and her arm was draped across his stomach. Her position bespoke her total trust in him, and he tried to suss out how that made him feel. 

Damned edgy, mostly. It was unnatural, _wrong._ A girl her age should run screaming from someone like him, not cuddle up next to him and fall asleep. It aroused all sorts of conflicting emotions in him.  If he made a list, pleasure and fear would be warring for the top spot.

Her hair smelled like Lilies of the Valley. He hadn't noticed it before she'd fallen asleep in his arms. She hadn't been this close to him earlier in the evening, and with all the scented candles wafting their varied odors about the room, he supposed missing it could be explained. He dipped his face close to the shining locks and inhaled deeply, letting memories of his Slayer and the accompanying pain wash over him.

_Hair so gold it looked like it was shining in the sun, soft white blouse, and the scent of Lilies of the Valley lingering in his crypt after she'd gone. _

It was not her usual scent, which made it stand out more clearly in his mind. It was Joyce's, he remembered now. Buffy must have used her mother's shampoo that day, and Dawn must have done so today. Had they used it to feel closer to their mum?

_"It's human. A-Negative. That's your favorite, right? I – I owe you. For what you did for Dawn. And I need you back at full strength as soon as possible. You know, don't you, that she'll come after us again? I'm counting on you to help us out."_

Another night. A different setting.

_"I'm counting on you to protect her."_

_"Till the end of the world."_

_"I'm counting on you."_

_"I'm counting on you."_

It was just a tiny little thing, a remembered scent, but it triggered memories that quickly and radically altered his mood. The contentment he'd been feeling as he surveyed the redecorated crypt slid away, and the always-present pain intensified, flaring up and grabbing him full force, twisting viciously in his gut. His head fell against the soft back of the sofa, and he swallowed convulsively, struggling against the tears burning in his throat and just behind his eyes.

He'd only allowed himself to cry twice. That first night at the morgue, and a few nights back, with the bot. He refused to let the tears come more often. 

He didn't deserve the release they offered.

He'd killed her, hadn't he? Let her die? He should suffer for eternity for that. And, bein' what he was, he knew he would. It was fitting, proper. 

_It was exactly what he deserved._

_ You can't think... Spike, you almost died for Dawn, for me. You _**would have**_ died for us. You put your life on the line, and you think you _**failed**_ us? Failed me? You're wrong. So completely wrong. ___

If nothing else, hearing Buffy say that in his mind the other night had been enough to convince him she was simply a dream of some kind, a vision. The real Slayer would've been much more likely to kick his arse from here to eternity for his failures the night at the tower.

The thought of fighting with her induced its usual reaction in him – pleasure – and his longing for her intensified. He closed his eyes, and indulged himself for a few minutes with pleasant memories,

Buffy – their first time, at the high school; in a warehouse on Halloween; in an abandoned church…

_"I'd rather be fighting you anyway."_

_"Mutual."_

Pure pleasure.

_Ahhh, Buffy. I miss you, love. Miss you so much. Always._

Dawn muttered in her sleep, and Spike eased away from her, lowering her into a supine position. He ran a shaking hand over her hair, and stood, looking down at the sleeping girl.

_"I'm counting on you to protect her."_

_Promise, love. Gave you my word. I'll take care of her. 'Til the end of the world.  Can't ever make up for failin' you the way I did. But I'll do better this time, I swear. I'll keep her safe, protect her. Make myself stronger, faster, better. Won't ever let my guard down. Not for a minute. I'll be someone you can count on. Someone you can..._

Dawn turned on her side, and curled a hand under her cheek. Her eyes blinked open and she smiled at him sleepily.

"Mmmm. Night, Spike. I love you," she murmured before dropping back into sleep.

Spike took a step back in shock, staring at her. She'd never said that to him. He'd felt it, maybe, yeah, but she'd never actually said it. She couldn't… She didn't…

He could probably count on one hand the number of times he'd heard those words since he'd been turned, and they threw him, arousing feelings he wasn't quite sure how to cope with. The longer he knew her, the more time he spent in her company, the more he realized that their whole relationship did a damn good job of making him feel things, and think about things, that he'd never had to deal with in well over one hundred years. He didn't think he even understood half of them.

Spike flung himself into a nearby armchair and lit a cigarette. Moodily, he changed channels on the telly, trying to find something of interest. After a while he gave up and set the remote control aside.

Instead, he watched Dawn sleep.

~*~

My sincere thanks to whoever nominated 'Journeys' at the Fancy Me Yours awards. I was shocked when my cyber bud, First Rabid, contacted me to congratulate me on winning for Best Romance Fic, especially since I didn't know I'd been nominated. It was a wonderful surprise, and I thank the judges as well… I was thrilled!


	13. Chapter Thirteen

**Journeys by Mary **

~*~

WE are shaped and fashioned by what we love. 

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

~*~

**Part One – Promise to a Lady**

WHY did I love her? 

Because it was her; because it was me.

– Montaigne

~*~

See notes, etc. preceding chapter one. There is also a nice, long author's note at the end of this chapter.

**Chapter Thirteen**

Perhaps he just shouldn't patrol with Spike, Giles thought. Being subjected on a regular basis to the wild and reckless behavior the vampire seemed to so frequently display, could not possibly be doing anything to benefit his long term physical, mental or emotional well being.

Tonight had been no exception. First, there'd been that leap into the center of a group of five angry vampires. And then, on their way back to the Magic Box, there had been that somewhat bizarre attack by the apparently drug crazed human. He'd had a dangerously broken bottle in his hand, and the exceedingly poor luck to try out his mugging skills on a chipped, but always game for a fight anyway, vampire.

Giles sighed.

Spike was proving remarkably successful at keeping the demon population of Sunnydale in check. Over the long, sad months of summer and into autumn, the vampire had taken on a good chunk of the physical role of the Slayer. He was a fierce fighter, and he worked out tirelessly to be just that much faster, that much stronger. Though he'd never again witnessed an explosion of deadly power that could quite match what they'd seen Spike unleash against the dragons a couple of months ago, Giles was quite pleased with his increasingly effective style. He was also impressed by the blond's determination to become even more adept in the use of different fighting techniques, and the use of a growing variety of weaponry.

One could quite easily call the vampire's determination an obsession.

Certainly he took training a lot more seriously than Buffy had been inclined to. And even though his knowledge of the subject seemed to be already quite vast, Spike studied demonology as well, something Buffy had always tried to avoid at all costs. Giles smiled a little at his musings, even as he sighed. It hurt. It would always hurt. It had been nearly five months now, and sometimes, not often, but every once in a while, he could think of his beloved girl without pain, but instead with fond remembrance. In memory, her stubbornness, her unique fire, even her faults and quirks, all seemed equally endearing. 

As it often does, time was beginning to heal him, and most of the others as well.

The other day, Dawn had told a funny story about a disastrous hair color experiment Buffy had tried when they still lived in L.A. It didn't matter that the memories were implanted. They were real to Dawn, and so seemed just as real to the others. They had all laughed. Dawn's mimicry of Buffy's horrified expression had really been quite accurate and humorous. He'd chuckled himself.

When Xander began a story from his own memories, Spike had slipped almost unnoticed out the back, and Giles had realized that he often slipped away when Buffy's name came up. He tried to remember if he'd ever really heard Spike speak of Buffy, other than the time he'd told him about the dreams and visions he'd been having. He couldn't remember for sure, but if he had, it had been a very rare occurrence. For some reason, after just a minute or two, Giles had followed him. Spike had been standing in the alley, leaning back against the wall, the ever-present cigarette in his hand.

_"Everything alright, Spike?" he asked._

_Spike's expression was remote, and he didn't respond immediately. Instead he took a long pull on his cigarette._

_"Thought I sensed a group hug coming on," he said coolly. "Decided I'd best duck out before the bit sucked me into it."_

_"It's good to hear her talking about Buffy and remembering happier times, don't you think?"_

_Spike pressed the back of his head against the aged bricks behind him, and his eyes closed briefly, before opening to meet his. Giles watched the muscles move in his throat._

_"She needs to laugh," The blond said at last. "Deserves it." He took another drag of his cigarette. "I heard something about a nest of vamps down near the docks. Thought I'd go check it out. Tell Dawn I'll stop by the house later, will you?"_

_Giles hadn't pressed him. "I'll do that. Goodnight, Spike."_

_But he'd already gone, leaving a flash of black leather, and the arching glow of a discarded cigarette in his wake._

_Even in the dim light of the alley, Giles' eyes picked up the gleam of something wet running down the wall from a spot of slightly askew bricks._

_He hadn't asked Spike about his bloodied hands. _

_He hadn't needed to._

Giles pulled his mind back to the present, rubbing the back of his neck. Grief still plagued all of them, and he no longer tried to deny, in any way, that Spike's grief was as genuine as his own. He'd seen too much over the slow summer months. Too much pain, too much sorrow. Indeed, he had no doubt whatsoever that that vampire had loved his slayer with great depth and passion. A love, that, had she lived, may have transformed the soulless being into something new. Even with her gone, his love for the dead girl was acting on the vampire in ways Giles had been taught were simply not possible.

Not for the first time, Giles wondered if the research performed and provided by the Council of Watchers on vampiric predestination might be flawed or perhaps incomplete. On the other hand, perhaps Spike was just a completely unique representative of his kind, an aberration of a sort. Giles had always rather disliked that particular word – aberration. It too often seemed to be a polite substitute for 'freak'.

He also mused occasionally on just what it might have been about Buffy that had caused not just _one_, but _two,_ such notorious vampires to fall so deeply in love with her.  For them to love someone who should be their most mortal enemy, and to love her to the point of being willing to die for her, seemed so very, very strange, so _unlikely..._ Giles sighed. In light of everything he had ever been taught, had ever learned or believed, it made no sense.

He should know by now, Giles thought, that life was always full of interesting little turns in the road. Certainly a lot of those turns could be, _should be,_ in how one viewed things, how one thought, in what one believed. If one's opinions never changed at all from the first opinion one formed, what would be the purpose of living and observing life? It would imply one was incapable of learning, and Giles hoped that that could never be said of him, that he would remain a willing student throughout his life.

Though he may be fighting like a slayer, Spike never in any way attempted to take over Buffy's leadership role within the Scoobies. Giles was aware that any step the vampire might take in that direction would not be met with acceptance by Willow or Xander, so he thought it something of a blessing that Spike showed no interest in directing the others. When asked, he would patrol with one or more of them, or even, reluctantly, with the bot, but Giles knew the vampire would have preferred to work alone. 

As he always did when continuing his unsuccessful search for Doc. He never spoke of it, but Giles knew Spike was deeply angered by his inability to locate the little demon, and frustrated that that piece of unfinished business remained just that – unfinished. 

As far as working with the others, though, Spike bowed to Giles leadership, and even went along with Willow's growing role as demon hunting coordinator. Except when he, er, _didn't,_ Giles thought. Which was, in Willow's words, whenever he damn well felt like ignoring them and going off in his own direction. Willow was becoming increasingly frustrated by him, and was voicing that frustration more and more frequently, and with greater vigor.

He really needed to make a more concerted effort to spend time with Willow, Giles prodded himself. Now that Dawn was back in school, and things felt, to his mind, a bit more 'settled', he wanted to start working in depth with Buffy's friend on her magical studies. They'd spoken of getting together several times over the summer, but something always seemed to come up to prevent it. 

He was growing rather concerned for her. She'd seemed very short tempered recently, and he wondered if she was handling Buffy's loss as well as she'd claimed to be earlier in the summer. When he'd tried to ask, though, she'd insisted she was fine. _No problem._ Period. End of discussion. 

But she'd been rather snippy with Dawn a good many times, and she'd made several very snide comments about Spike's continuing presence in the workout room at the Magic Box. When he had tried to calmly explain that he felt Spike had changed, at least to some extent, and that they really did need his contributions, Willow had muttered something quite unpleasant. He must say, he'd been a tad put off by her attitude, which seemed quite unWillowlike. 

And that changed attitude, that _hardness_, only served to increase his concern. Willow had gone through periods of moodiness in the past, he reminded himself. Perhaps his – wariness – for lack of a better word, was unfounded. 

If he was aware of Willow's complaints, Spike didn't comment on them. The vampire remained unnaturally quiet around the others, rarely speaking at all. While they all seemed able to work well enough together for the most part, Spike continued to hold himself aloof. 

He could only really be said to have a relationship of any kind with Dawn. 

And, surprisingly, with himself.

Giles unlocked the door to the Magic Box, and, ever the gentleman, held it open for Spike to enter before him.

Over the past few months, the two Englishmen had developed an increasingly comfortable familiarity with one another. It was an odd relationship. There were elements of friendship and camaraderie, mingling with a mentor/student relationship. Though the relationship was very young, and, at times, still rather tentative, they seemed to recognize a need and fill a void in one another's lives. 

Giles sometimes felt that working with Spike, trying to understand the vampire, had given his life something of a purpose since Buffy's loss. Certainly it had occupied his mind in a good many ways, and Giles felt that that, in turn, had helped him to climb out of the depression he had been slipping deeply into in the first weeks after her – death.

Sometimes he could think the word now, even though speaking it still seemed beyond him. 

Giles found the entire situation with Spike – the vampire himself, his actions, his own long building intrigue with the blond – really quite surprising. He may have initiated the relationship, at least in part, because he needed Spike's strength and desired his knowledge of vampiric habits and general demonology, but those were not the only reasons it continued.

It had begun, he supposed, when the vampire was living with him right after the Initiative chip had been implanted in his unwilling brain. He remembered being quite shocked at the time to discover that, aside from Spike's appalling musical taste, and his distressing, but oddly contagious, fascination with that strange soap opera, Passions, the two of them shared many others. Spike didn't often let a lot of details about his human life slip, but it was obvious he was very well educated. He possessed a keen intelligence, and was blessedly well read. After a good many years of having Xander as his primary source of male companionship, _that_ had certainly been a welcome breath of fresh air.

_There was something about him._ Giles had never quite been able to put his finger on it, but he had long noted it. He'd tried to talk to Spike about it a few times shortly after the chip had so drastically altered his, er, life. But Spike had had no interest in discussing his future, or much of anything, really, at that time. Giles had shelved the idea, thinking to approach Spike again after he'd had a few months to adjust to his new – circumstances.

But then something else had happened. Something unexpected. And after that, Giles had honestly felt it was best to keep Spike away from the others. More specifically, he had felt it was best to keep him as far away from Buffy as possible.

Spells can be funny things. Results were sometimes not what the caster intended, which had quite frequently been the case with Willow. When she had cast her 'my will be done' spell, affecting most of them, the effects on Buffy and Spike had been by far the most interesting. Certainly, at the time, he had found them the most distressing. Willow's wish had been for them to get married, not to fall in love. Why, then, hadn't they treated it like a forced, arranged marriage, or a business maneuver? Those were types of marriage too. But they hadn't. They'd been all over each other with obvious passion. Even back then he'd wondered how much of that may have been brought about by the spell, and how much may have been simmering under the surface, spell or no spell. He was still quite grateful he hadn't been forced to watch them. Listening to them had been more than enough, thank you very much. They'd been teasing each other, laughing, bickering over wedding details like many engaged couples. Under it all, there had been a tenderness that even he could feel. To his further surprise, Spike had gone over all protective, both of Buffy, and, even more to his consternation, of himself – Buffy's surrogate father. When they'd discovered the existence of the spell, even though the two felt they weren't being affected by it, Spike had seemed anxious to use his knowledge to help Giles. The spell certainly hadn't been cast to change their personalities. So where had _that_ – that tenderness and concern from Spike – come from?

Giles had often wondered what it was in the make up of the two of them that had caused the spell to affect them that way. And he worried about it enough that he felt it was in Buffy's best interests, indeed, in all their best interests, to keep Spike as far outside their little circle as possible. Bringing him in, accepting him as part of the group, even when Giles began to realize how advantageous it would be to have Spike's knowledge and strength on their side – well, there were dangers in that course of action. Dangers that had been demonstrated in Buffy's relationship with Angel. And even though the circumstances were different, Giles had felt that there were enough similarities that doing everything possible to avoid any – situations – was best for everyone involved. 

Now, though, with Buffy no longer with them, Giles felt more comfortable having Spike around. And the whole issue of the words Buffy had spoken to Spike in his dream – the same words Tara, in what they had at the time, interpreted to be the de facto voice of the first slayer, had spoken to Buffy in a dream after the defeat of Adam – unveiled a wealth of possibilities about Spike, his purpose, and what might lie in his future.

And if it came right down to it, he would probably have to admit he rather liked the vampire, even enjoyed his company. Foolishly, Giles glanced around the room, which was, of course, empty except for the two of them, as though someone might have read his thoughts and be about to demand an explanation.

"So I thought I'd start training her," Spike was saying as they began cleaning and placing their weaponry in its' proper places. "Bit's gonna stay here, be livin' on the Hellmouth, it's best she know how to take care of herself. Least a little. I don't want her thinkin' she can start patrollin' with us, but basic self defense, some practice stakin' and such – it'd be good for her."

Hank Summers had yet to be heard from. Or, for that matter, any of the girls' other relatives.

_Wankers,_ Giles thought, and had to smile at the word that come to mind. 

"I agree," he said. "I trust you'll take it slow. She's just a child," Giles went on, trying to ignore the fact that Dawn was the same age that Buffy had been when she was called. It seemed impossible.

"'Course I will," Spike assured him. His tone suggested that anything else was out of the question.

"She's very fond of you," Giles began. "I wanted to talk to you about that."

"Yeah?" Spike finished polishing the blade of his favorite axe and placed it almost reverently in its place on the wall. 

Giles chose his words carefully. "I had hoped I could use Dawn's affection for you to try to persuade you to act with a little more – care, shall we say? A little more caution?"

Spike went still, and then he straightened up slowly, his eyes narrowing. "In what way, Watcher, am I not acting with care?" the vampire asked tightly.

Giles' brows went up. Spike sounded insulted, and his voice had taken on that very distinct upper class inflection that Giles had noticed several times before. He frowned, perplexed.

"Tonight, for instance," he began again, and Spike looked puzzled. "Jumping directly into the midst of all those vamps. It was careless. You very effectively surrounded yourself."

Spike's face smoothed out. "Caution in battle can be deadly," Spike was calm now, his indignant tone totally gone. "Hesitation can kill."

"I think we can be fairly certain that will never be a problem for you," Giles said with some humor. What had Spike thought he was talking about? Then he replayed the conversation in his mind, and almost – well, almost chuckled. Spike had thought he was going to make some sort of accusation of improper behavior with Dawn! For some reason, it struck him as amusing.

And _that_ struck him as very odd. Trusting a vampire – any vampire – should be almost impossible for him to do. He asked himself the same question he'd asked so often these past months – why did it _not_ seem impossible in this case?

_Why did he trust Spike? _

Giles frowned. Good… Evil... 

Spike fit in there somewhere, but Giles was no longer quite sure where. Sometimes, he actually wanted to mutter _'Oh, damn and blast!' and tug on his hair in frustration as the all questions he had concerning Spike swirled endlessly in his brain. He smiled inwardly in amusement. His hair was _not _thinning, he assured himself. Not at all. Still, tugging on it was probably not advisable. _

Besides, hair tugging was a trifle beneath his dignity.

"I understand that hesitation can be dangerous in battle, though I would argue that _caution_ can save lives. I see them as very different things. I'm only asking that you try to exercise a bit more care, to act with a little less recklessness. I mentioned Dawn. That girl loves you, Spike. And I have no wish to be the one to have to tell her that you've been killed during patrol. How do you think she would take that?"

Spike began to pace. He lit a cigarette – what else was new? – and frowned as he moved about the room.

Spike may not have a death wish, exactly, Giles thought. But the reckless disregard for his own safety that he continued to display suggested to Giles that while Spike may have no intention of deliberately seeking death, he really wouldn't mind if it were to find him. His whole attitude while fighting screamed that he didn't much care if he lived or died. Once before Giles had tried to use the vampire's protectiveness toward Dawn to get him to change a behavior. Since he saw no real evidence that Spike was sleeping more, he didn't think it had been particularly effective. But it was the only lure he felt he had. Perhaps this time it would prove more successful.

"I gave my word, Watcher, to protect her." Spike said at last. "I won't break it, and I intend to do everything necessary to keep it."

"I don't think you have any intention of breaking your word. I hope I didn't imply that. But you do take chances that you needn't take. You had no business jumping in front of me tonight when that drugged up young ruffian attacked us. What were you thinking? You can't fight with humans. And contrary to what you might believe, I do have some ability to protect myself." The words were serious, but Giles attempted to keep his tone light. He didn't wish to say anything more that Spike would take the wrong way.

However, he was unprepared for Spike's reaction.

"She loved you. She'da wanted me to protect you." Spike's voice was raw, and his hands moved emphatically. "'m not gonna fail her again."  

"Fail?" Giles asked, puzzled. Then understanding dawned, and with it a kind of sympathetic horror. He removed his glasses, cleaning them carefully as he spoke. "Spike you must let this go. We all feel a certain amount of responsibility for what happened to Buffy. It's natural. We were all there, and it's inevitable that we'll all feel there may have been more we could have done to change the outcome of that night." He replaced his glasses, and kept his tone firm and soothing. "I should have spoken to you about this earlier, when I spoke with the others." 

"The soddin' Scoobies weren't up there, were they?" Spike demanded furiously, and Giles blinked, taking a step back. The rage in the vampire's voice was terrible to hear, and even though he knew it was self-directed, it unnerved him a bit. "I was. I know what happened.

"I didn't stop that sonofabitch from cutting my girl, did I?"

"But Spike –"

"Didn't stop the portal from opening, did I?"

"You were –"

"Didn't s-stop –" his voice broke, and he paused before finishing quietly, "Didn't stop anything, did I?"

Giles stared. He could hear it in the vampire's voice. He'd seen it in his face, in his actions, all summer, and he had failed to recognize it. To recognize the _depth _of the feeling. _Had he been completely blind?_ he wondered now. This wasn't a simple/complicated case of, 'If only I..." – the kind of guilt that they were all suffering from to some extent. This was a deep seeded certainty that_ his actions alone, and those actions he hadn't been able to successfully carry out, were directly and solely responsible for Buffy's death._

_For the death of the young woman the vampire had loved.                     _

"I cannot allow you to blame yourself for Buffy's death," Giles said, forcing out the 'D' word. "I wasn't up on the tower with you, but I was there. I saw what happened. Moreover, I knew Buffy – knew her as well as anyone. She wouldn't have wanted you to blame yourself. _ Spike, you almost died for Dawn, for Buffy. You _**would have**_ died for them. You put your life on the line, and you think you _**failed**_ them? Failed Buffy? You're wrong. So completely wrong."_

The look of shock on Spike's face in reaction to his words made Giles frown in puzzlement. The vampire dropped his burning cigarette to the floor and pushed his hands into his hair, squeezing his head between his palms. His vivid blue eyes were burning with anguish, screaming unvoiced questions at the Watcher, and he took a couple of heaving breaths before he was able to speak.

"I'm gonna go clean up," the blond said abruptly. He wiped his face clean of any emotion, and whirled away, disappearing in the direction of the bathroom.

Giles walked over to step out the glowing embers of the cigarette, and let him go.

~*~

When Spike returned, Giles didn't introduce the subject again directly. 

For the most part, English reserve was alive and well in Sunnydale.

"How about a game of chess?" Giles asked instead, his eyes going with some longing to the chessboard. He had to acknowledge that the vampire was a reckless but innovative opponent. Not that Spike could beat him. Well, not often, anyway. 

He could often get Spike to talk over chess, and Giles could plainly see that Spike needed to talk. But the vampire declined, glancing at the clock. He didn't say anything, but Giles knew he was planning to head over to Revello Drive. It was nearly midnight, and that, it seemed, was the regularly scheduled time for Spike to begin his vigil on the roof of the Summers' home, just outside Dawn's window.

"You do remember that Dawn is staying with friends tonight, right?" he said with a weak attempt at subtlety, and Spike's expression told him that the vampire had temporarily forgotten. 

Even so, Spike tried to bluster his way out of getting caught in guardian mode, trying to pretend the girl's whereabouts had nothing to do with his stated need to leave. "So?"

Giles shook his head. There was no reason to press the issue. If Spike wanted to pretend that every move the girl made was not of utmost importance to him, Giles could let him attempt to foster the untruth. He didn't need to point out that in the event of an emergency, they all knew perfectly well where Spike could be found during the approximate hours of midnight to four a.m.

The men left the store, and Spike paused, lighting another cigarette as Giles turned to lock the door. 

"Goodnight," he offered, and Spike inclined his head. 

"Oh, and Spike?" Giles spoke before Spike could start down the street.

"Yeah?"

"Your devotion to and caring for Dawn are things you should be proud of."

"What?" Spike looked astounded by the compliment. Astounded and slightly appalled.

Giles met Spike's eyes squarely and spoke with soft deliberation, letting all the shades of meaning in the quote sink in_. "Pray that your loneliness may spur you into finding something to live for, great enough to die for." _

"Hammarskjold," Spike spouted, sounding, for a moment, remarkably like a prized pupil. 

"I think you've done that, with Dawn. And I wanted you to know that I recognize and appreciate it. And that Buffy would have, too._"_

Spike stared at Giles in silence for several long moments, his face a study in changing, and sometimes conflicting, emotions. Then his body relaxed and he took the easy way out, commenting on one part of the quote. "I don't pray, Watcher." He gestured vaguely to himself, "Demon."

Giles hesitated, then let things go by saying quietly, "I don't pray a lot myself. But most of us pray at one time or another, Spike. Even, I think, you."

Spike just stared at him for a moment without speaking before he turned away and melted into the night.

~*~

_Show me. Show me how to go on without her._

Spike closed his eyes as he moved silently through the dark streets over the Hellmouth, remembering the desperation that had led him to cry out those words. Had that been a prayer? He didn't know. 

Didn't think so. 

No.

Demons don't pray. 

Spike squared his shoulders, shrugging off the disturbing Watcher-induced introspection.

Time to find something to kill.

~*~

Giles watched him go. He'd told them all earlier this week that he was headed to England the day after tomorrow. He'd implied he was merely taking a little vacation, visiting family. And he _would_ visit some family. But he planned to spend most of his time doing some research. The Council had been their usual less than helpful selves when he'd tied to elicit information from them over the phone, and his letters had gone unanswered. Giles felt this was important, important enough that he was going to England himself to try to find out more about it.

_Spike… You think you know, what you are, what's to come… You haven't even begun._

They came in a slightly different order than they'd come when spoken to Buffy in her dream, but Giles felt they were close enough. 

Yes, he thought those words might be very important, indeed.

~*~

He stopped about a dozen feet from her headstone. He always felt this compulsion, this need, to hang back for a moment before moving closer, almost as though he was awaiting permission. Or courage. He paused, head down, before approaching, then moved directly to the piece of granite her Watcher and friends had chosen, engraved with the words Dawn had carefully decided on, and hunkered down beside it.

He never talked to her the way he and Dawn sometimes did to Joyce, rarely even uttering a sound while here. But sometimes he touched the marker, let his rough fingers trace over the engraved letters of her name. Sometimes he would bring her something, a flower left out for him behind Emily's shop, a seashell, even something as simple as a stone or a leaf with an interesting shape or texture. 

Emily had left him something beautiful and exotic tonight. It was a deep red, looking almost black in the moonlight, and its' color matched the blood drying on his hands from another fight, another brick wall. He didn't know what kind of flower it was, but he liked the shape and color of it, the faint but spicy scent. He brushed it under his nose before he laid it carefully on the grass at the base of the headstone next to the shriveled remains of the jonquil he'd brought the night before.

Spike dropped to his knees, then sat back on his heels, head bowed.

Time slipped by, ignored by the silent vampire.

He stretched out full length on Buffy's grave, staring up at the stars overhead for a brief flicker of time.  _Other skies, other worlds._ Did she still exist somewhere out there, in some other dimension, or on some other plane? If she did, he hoped she was – done. She'd struggled so much with her duty the last several months of her life. He hadn't been her confidant, but he'd seen the strain and pain in her eyes intensify almost daily.

Be happy, love. At peace. 

He rolled onto his stomach, spreading his arms out on the ground – reaching, surrounding. His elbows bent, and he drew his hands in nearer to his head and turned his cheek to the ground.

His right hand clutched at the turf, his fingers digging through the blanket of grass and into the dirt below. The hand closed around the grass and dirt. Held tight. Tighter.

Only inches from his face, his left hand clenched fiercely into a hard knuckled fist which caused the blood to flow anew from his injuries, then flexed. Did his blood find its way down to her? he wondered, watching it drip from his hand and seep into the ground beneath him.

_Your blood, my blood, our blood. It flows in you. Makes you strong_. 

I'm not strong, love. I'm barely holding on. 

_ Sometimes that **is** being strong. Just holding on. One day at a time. When that's too hard, you hold on one hour at a time. Or just minute by minute. But you do it, you hold on. And you're there for the people who need you. Like you are, for Dawn. _

Spike closed his eyes, pretending he couldn't see her sitting next to him. Pretending he couldn't hear her voice, with its' now familiar whispering darkness, so clearly in his mind. Pretending he couldn't feel her fingers stroking over his bloodied knuckles.

_ It might sound clichéd, Will, but it's still true. You're strong, and I know I can count on you. _

_She'd dead. She's not here. _

_She'll never be here._

_Never._

He was immortal. Eternity stretched out in front of him. But without her, all it offered was an endless, and  cripplingly lonely, emptiness.****

_Buffy. Buffy._

His left hand clenched more tightly.

Then flexed.

His eyes, dark blue and as empty as his future, opened again, and focused on his hand.  
  
Clench.  
  
Flex.  
  
No other movement.  
  
Clench.  
  
Flex.  
  
Clench.

Flex.  
  
Hours later, when the first scents of sunrise reached him, he rolled slowly, stiffly, onto his back, and looked up into the lightening sky.

God, how he longed for it. To feel the first rays of the sun touch him, warm him, dust him.

There was no fear of the 'final death.' The fires of hell, the twin flames of guilt and grief, had been licking through his veins for months, devouring everything inside him, ravaging his mind. How could the actual reality of hell be worse? Hadn't Buffy's death, and his responsibility for it, already created, for him, hell right here on earth? The blessed nothingness he'd experienced for too few days right after the tower, was long gone, too easy a way out for a demon like him. By giving him Buffy's blood, Dawn had ensured his continued existence, but she'd stolen that welcome escape from him.

He knew Dawn thought he was doing better, coming to terms with Buffy's loss. He'd done everything he could over the last month or so to foster that belief in her. Didn't need his girl worryin' about him, did he? And he had to admit to himself that their still deepening friendship had helped him get through the summer. He hoped it had helped her too, maybe helped her start recovering from the horrors of the last year of her life. The Watcher seemed to think it had. 

The time spent alone, though, when he wasn't with Dawn, or when he wasn't fighting or killing – well, that was a different matter. It was a part of him now. The undiminished despair, the still raw pain, the longing, and the never-ending mind-destroying guilt. It hadn't gone away, hadn't even eased as the months passed. For the most part, and on _almost every occasion, he'd learned to control the desire to roar his rage at fate into the night. But beyond that, he didn't feel much different than he had the night he'd gone to the morgue and mourned over his dead Slayer's body. _

Buffy's death had changed him in some fundamental way. Had it killed something in him, or caused something buried deep inside to come alive? He wasn't sure. He just knew it was – _he was – different._

Fate. Control. The Powers That Be. Destiny. Strings being pulled, buttons being pushed. Punishment and penance. Guilt and pain, and ghosts whispering words in his mind that sent the Watcher into full-on research mode. And now the Watcher was repeating words Buffy had said to him in a dream or vision of some sort. W_hat the hell had that been anyway, that night in her room, in her body? _Other than bleedin' perfect, that is?

Spike groaned softly. Contemplating his sanity, or lack of it – well, he was workin' hard to stop doing that altogether. Too afraid of the conclusions he'd reach, Spike figured, snorting inwardly. But even without that in the mix, his mind raced endlessly. Like the pain, it never let up, and he was getting bloody sick of it. Always had to be churning away, tryin' to suss out some bigger than unlife issue. Soddin' life, the universe, and everything. Spike pushed his hands into his hair, and pressed them against his skull momentarily, wishing he could just squeeze some of the less desirable contemplations out.

God, he longed for simpler times.

_Fight. Bite. Feed._

Yeah, that'd been the ticket.

Spike rolled to his knees. He knew what Dawn thought, _what he wanted her to think_, but his girl was wrong. He still wanted the final death. Longed for it. Craved it more than he craved blood. He gazed at his Slayer's headstone. The desire to stay grabbed at him, twisted inside him, and he closed his eyes against the temptation. God, to let the sun send his remains into the earth that blanketed her body, to become a part of that earth!

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. 

It was the closest to her he could ever be, his only chance to spend eternity anywhere near her. 

_Someday, he promised himself, when he was – finished…  _

With an effort, Spike forced himself to rise and return to his crypt. 

He had to. 

For Dawn. 

Because he loved her...

...and because he'd made a promise to a lady. 

~*~ 

MEMORIES are all we really own.

 – Elias Lieberman 

~*~

Author's Notes 

This story will be continued in Part Two – Journeys: Awakenings. Chapters should begin appearing soon. Very soon. Really.

In response to requests, I've also put together an e-mail list to let readers know when new chapters have been sent to the sites that are kindly hosting the story. Please note that chapters may NOT appear at all listed sites on the day I send notification, because the site owners are busy people, and will be getting new chapters up as soon as they bloody well can. (**grin**) If you've ever sent me any feedback, I've already placed your name on the notification list. If you're not sure that includes you, or if you'd like to be added to the list, just let me know at MKStatz@aol.com. I'll add you forthwith.

I've decided to stop posting the chapters themselves to the Yahoo Groups. I hate how the formatting doesn't transfer, and having to take the time to 'fix' things a little before posting there, which can take longer than you might think. I will send notification to the groups though, and provide links.

In the author's notes preceding Chapter One, I stated that feedback would not make the chapters appear any faster, but that it would still be lovely to receive. I'd like to revise that. I honestly do think it inspires me. Otherwise, you're working your tail off, and have no knowledge if anyone is actually reading. In other words: As far as feedback goes, I flippin' love it. Please send.

'Journeys' continues to grow daily, and will be passing the 500 page mark in the next couple of days – and that's in a 8.5 font, too! (Oh. My. God. It's a monster.) The story covers about a year and a half, give or take an epilogue or two, in the lives of the gang. I had thought the story could not possibly become longer than 500 pages, but SURPISE! I was wrong. (I know, it shocked my kids, too, since they'd never experienced that before!) 'Journeys' began in my head as a sort of long piece of erotica, but then this whole plot idea clobbered me over the head, and forced me to work it into the sex scenes. The nerve! And before anyone says 'If you have 500 pages written, can we get chapter updates a little faster?' (**snerk** Hi, Brandi!), the answer is 'no'. And I have a good and valid reason. The pages written are not the _first _500 pages! Part Two, Awakenings, has been bugger all for me to write, causing far more problems than any other part of the story. It continues to irk me in many ways, but I'm working on it. Slaving away. So, I hope you'll all be patient, and hang in there. I'll continue to post at a sedate pace, but once I've actually finished writing the story, I promise I will post remaining chapters much more quickly.

I'm also taking this opportunity to send heartfelt apologies to subscribers at The Crypt Door, my Yahoo Group, which I have woefully neglected in order to work on this story. I've read a grand total of two Buffy stories since August. Believe me, I am going into severe withdrawal. (I'm beginning to think of all the wonderful stories I'll get to read once 'Journeys' is finished as my reward.) I do promise I have not abandoned The Crypt Door, and, as soon as I'm reading again, I'll be back to recommending great stories.

And for those who have asked, and others who may be wondering, _yes_, 'Journeys' _is _a Buffy/Spike story. Start to finish. **_Buffy/Spike._** The Spike-centric/redemption nature of the story means that Spike might have to deal with important relationships from his past, and that he will be forming important new relationships with People. Who. Are. Not. Buffy. But the story remains Buffy/Spike. Trust me. I know. I've read the ending.

Happy New Year, everyone. Celebrate safely, and please accept my wishes for a new year filled with good health and happiness. 

Thanks for reading.

Mary December 29, 2002 


End file.
